


The Mortal Life of Jamie Bennett

by aleksandr_starshow



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:38:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksandr_starshow/pseuds/aleksandr_starshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been seven years since the battle against Darkness. Jack Frost had been absent from Jamie Bennett's life...<br/>...until now.</p><p> </p><p>[Told through Jamie's POV; a growing up story]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

_April..._

 

"Oh, man... I really need a girlfriend."             

Jamie rolled his eyes and swiveled in his chair to see Monty sprawled out across his bed. The Allens were known for being tall and ultra lanky and Monty was no exception. He had that kind of windswept, golden blond hair that caused heads to turn and was as wiry as a pole and taller still. He had experienced a startling, though somewhat expected, growth spurt last year, that had caused him to shoot up like a root about two feet into the air. Nearing six feet, everyone expected Monty to keep growing for the rest of their high school careers. 

"Maybe you should wear your armor to school again," Jamie said, grinning. "The girls seemed to love that!"

Monty groaned. "I told you, man. I was hung over from the Halloween party. I didn't--"

"--want to be late for school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. What about Trinity Rollands?"

Monty plunged his face into the pillows of Jamie's bed. "Mmmff."

"What was that?"

"Have you seen her guns?" Monty lifted his head and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses. There were shadows beneath his eyes and his cheekbones seemed more prominent than ever. "She could break me in two!"

"What about Victoria Riccatello? Didn't you guys date or something?" Jamie only haphazardly kept up with Monty's love life. It was treacherous enough being on the outskirts. When Monty went on his tirades about women and life, Jamie tended to zone out and think of ice rinks and igloos.

"We went on that one date," Monty said miserably, finally sitting up and crossing his legs so that he looked a little like an overgrown praying mantis, lanky limbs, glasses and all. "She left halfway through when she realised I could eat through seven plates of food. All she had was a small garden salad. I felt bad about that, really. I mean, I didn't know what I was getting into." Monty had been known to eat through all of Jamie's snacks before and yet, no matter what he consumed, the kid never gained a pound. The Allen Curse, they called it. Tall and forever stick-like. One of their basketball coaches, Coach Novak, had thought maybe Monty's height would give him an advantage on the court, but Monty, though fast, demonstrated fear of the ball, and the notion was quickly forgotten. Monty's older brother, Jake, had gone on to university with a basketball scholarship but it seemed the talent stopped with him. Even so, the boy had a ravenous appetite and was constantly nibbling on pretzels or doritos. "What about you and Pippa?"

Jamie winced. It wasn't the first time _that_ question had come up. "Not interested. We're not like that. We're just friends, I promise."

Monty snorted and then yawned a lion's yawn. "I thought she liked you."

"Yeah, as a _friend_. Besides, she's dating that Derrick guy. You know, the one who is really good at chess and the Rubiks cube and all that."

Monty peered at his friend. "Oh yeah? And how do ya feel about that?"

Feeling a little uncomfortable, Jamie just shrugged. "How am I supposed to feel about it? I told you, there's nothing there. We're just friends." Jamie wasn't interested in commitment. As far as he could tell, with how many girls Monty went through, and with his parents having hushed fights during the night, relationships weren't worth it for the time being. Cutting off the conversation, Jamie swiveled back around in his chair to face his computer. His summer assignment was up on his screen, along with millions of windows of resources. Sighing, Monty hopped over the bed and bent to gaze over Jamie's shoulders. 

"You're seriously doing that extra credit project?"

Shrugging again, Jamie said, "It's climate research. Mr. Stoll said he'd take me to his friend's lab at the University of Maryland later this summer if I finished it."

"Such a nerd," Monty whispered, poking his friend in the back. 

"Says the kid wearing the Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt."

Monty ignored that. "Does this have anything to do with... with what happened?" 

It was the first time anyone had mentioned the incident in years. Jamie felt a sore spot in his shoulder blade throb, the way it did when he was particularly distressed. 

"Why would you think that?" he asked sharply. Monty, sensing the dangerous territory that he had entered, only said, 

"Just a thought."

Silence. 

Drawing in a breath, Monty added quietly, "Do you, uh... do you ever think about it?"

"No." It was a lie and both boys knew it. Jamie occupied himself with clicking through several of the tabs on his screen and setting them to print. He then crouched down below his desk to retrieve the papers. "Do you?"

"No," Monty answered reluctantly. "I, uh, had just kinda written it off as a dream."

Straightening, Jamie gave Monty a sardonic look. "You know it wasn't a dream."

"Yeah...I know...I _know_ , it's just..."

Monty's voice trailed off into that suffocating silence again. 

It was only a child's dream, Jamie had told himself over and over again throughout the years. He was so distracted that he stapled the wrong documents together. "Shit." He hastily tore the staples out and forced himself to focus so he could get it right. Why did Monty have to bring it up now? After all this time? The memories and the emotions that came with them hit him full force and dizziness forced him to close his eyes tightly. 

"Do you...do you still believe?" Monty said. 

Opening his eyes and turning to face his friend, Jamie scowled. "Of course, I still believe. I know what I saw."

Monty opened his mouth, probably to say something more, but a voice from downstairs called up to them, 

"Boys! Yoohoo! Dinner's ready!"

Without saying another word, and with Jaime feeling grateful for the interruption, the two boys headed downstairs for a delicious meal.  _Only a child's dream_? Jamie thought sarcastically to himself.  _Yeah, right. We all had the same dream, the same fantasy._ Occam's razor said otherwise. He shoved the thoughts, as well as the pain and excitement, to the back of his mind. He had more important things to focus on and he was not about to give into hope. 

Not now. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_October_   

 

"I'm dead," Pippa said. 

"Yep," Jamie agreed. Pippa sighed and put down the controller. 

"This game is wearing me out." She rubbed her eyes. The sun was setting, casting orange shadows across Jamie's room. The crystal in his window twirled a little with a slight, autumn breeze, and dulled rainbows reflected over his bed and floor. Jaime took the binder that was on his lap, set it beside him, and meandered over to his window. He breathed in, letting his lungs soak in the cooling air, closed his eyes, and breathed out again. Winter was nearing. Which meant more disappointment. Maybe later, he'd go for a drive; he'd passed his driver's test and gotten his license so they'd rewarded him with an ancient white Oldsmobile. It was battered a bit and the seats had a weird, red satin feel to them. It literally screamed 'old man' but Jamie didn't care. It was roomy and comfortable and, frankly, he didn't want anything else. Pippa came up behind him. 

"Are you okay, Jamie?"

He turned to face her, gave a nonchalant shrug. "Yeah. Why?"

Pippa's chestnut brown eyes were full of concern. "I mean... are you  _really_ okay? Monty told me you're still working on a thesis about global warming. You're in high school and you're doing college work. Not--not even for, like, a grade. Just for  _fun_ and--"

"What's wrong with that?" Jamie demanded, whirling upon her. "Really? What's wrong with me, I--I dunno, showing a little interest in our environment? Is that so bad?"

Pippa had more tact than Monty and she saw that anger flaring up in Jamie, so she quickly did what she needed to do to put out the flames. "You're right. Of course, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm..." she looked down at her feet, "I just get worried, I suppose. Most of the time, you seem fine, like your normal self, but other times, you seem... you get so wrapped up in your work, it's like... it's like you're not even sixteen anymore."

Jamie was silent. 

Pippa gazed back at him. "I look at you and..." she gave a soft smile, "...and I don't see a kid anymore. I see a man. So stern and responsible." She scrunched up her face into that of mock manliness. "Such the strong older brother." Jamie couldn't help himself and when he grinned, it was sheepish and humble. "I just worry that maybe you're growing up too fast."

"I'll be fine," Jamie said, feeling hot on the back of his neck. Yet no romantic fantasies came up. Everyone expected them to get together. Every guy Pippa dated was often jealous of Jamie and the one or two girls Jamie showed slight interest in were jealous of Pippa. But no one else would ever really understand. And he just couldn't bring himself to see her like that. Seeing that she was still looking very hesitant, Jaime punched her playfully in the shoulder. "I'll be fine! Don't worry about me!"

 _Winter is coming_ , he thought to himself, feeling that familiar, annual sense of dread accompanied by a painful tinge of hope. But he forced himself to push the thought aside.  _No_.  _No. I won't dwell on this_. 

"I know, I know." Pippa turned and plopped backwards onto Jamie's bed. She glanced over to Jamie's computer, which had an animated desktop of various real-time weather patterns across the globe scrawled over it. Jamie followed her gaze and with a sigh, he turned off the computer screen and then lay down on the bed beside Pippa. "Sometimes, I envy you. You know what you want in life. You found your passion. Meanwhile, I'm just... I'm everywhere. I can't decide if I want to go into art or medicine or marine biology or none of those things. Everyone says I'm too young to know what I wanna do in life, but seeing someone like you, so goal-oriented and--and-- _focused_ \--it's kinda scary."

"But we  _all_ have passions or, uh, things we really like," Jamie pointed out. "Monty talks about game design. The twins are athletes. Cupcake is into French. You're good at art."

"But I can't see myself doing art for a living. It's not easy. Mom always tells me she hopes I enjoy the box I'm going to live in." They both laughed. Jaime turned on his side to turn on the planetarium projector, which lit up his room with the observable universe. 

"It's so beautiful," Pippa said. 

"Yeah," agreed Jamie.  _But I don't know if it was made in a factory or at the hands of some Yeti. I feel like I don't even know the difference between what is real and what is just a dream. How can I merge the worlds of science and fantasy?_

There was a long silence. A long, comfortable silence. The both of them just stared at the stars.

Finally, 

"Do you ever...you know... think about _us_?" Jamie asked in a voice so soft, he was half-hoping Pippa didn't hear. 

"Yes, of course," she said. There was that familiar smile in her voice.

"And...?"

Pippa turned to look at him, propping herself up on her elbows. "Well, nothing, I suppose. I mean, that's not the way it turned out, is it? I have Derrick and you have..." She trailed off, frowning. 

"My research."

"That's not what I was going to say."

"I'm not married to my research."

Pippa didn't say anything. She didn't have to; Jamie could read her thoughts as plain as English.  _You're married to that night. To him_. 

"Look, tomorrow is supposed to be unusually warm and sunny. Like high 80s or something. Claude and Caleb invited all of us over to their pool. There will be food and drinks and music and a few other people but nothing too big, they promised. You wanna go?"

Jamie was in half a mind to say no, but just as he was about to answer, something glinted in his peripheral vision. He glanced at his window - the smallest stream of frost crawled across one of the panes. In a flash, Jamie was on his feet and he hurried to the window, but the frost was already nothing but dew drops. When he touched it, his fingers came back wet and he stared at them in shock.  _Could it be--?_

 _"_ Jamie? What is it?"

He turned to her, a big grin on his face. "Sure, Pippa, I'll go with you tomorrow."

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

_December..._        

 

"Mom, Sophie brought home a dog." Jamie stomped his boots on the ground, wiping off the mud and frost. He unwrapped his scarf and, with his coat, he hung them up, before entering the living room. 

"Oh, that's nice," his mother said. She smiled at him. "And what kind of dog -- oh my!"

Just as she was speaking, Jamie's 11-year-old sister, Sophie, came trudging through the door, followed by an enormous brown and white Saint Bernard. "Can we keep him?" she asked, showing all of her shiny, white teeth. Mom stared, frowned, tried to smile, failed, and then frowned again. 

"Honey, that's a really big dog--"

"I know! But he's so well-behaved! And trained! I'll take care of him, I promise! Pleeeease can I keep him?  _Pleeeeaaaase?_ " Their greyhound, Abby, had passed away a couple years ago, and it had been a huge hit on the family. They had tried to get another dog but Sophie refused every one, so eventually, they gave up. As if the greyhound hadn't been big enough, the Saint Bernard was a  _giant_. 

"Well, we'll have to talk to your father, but.. I suppose it's all right with me." She then added with a stern tone, "As long as you take care of him!" 

Sophie squealed in joy and hugged her new dog. Jamie patted him on his head before running up the stairs to his bedroom. 

"Dinner's in twenty minutes, Jamie!"

"Okay, Mom!"

His mother stood at the foot of the stares and called up quietly, "It's your father's turn to cook tonight so just... flatter him, okay?" Jamie grinned. 

"All right."

Upon entering his bedroom, Jamie tossed his backpack to the floor and turned on his computer. Immediately, weather patterns danced across the screen. He opened up MARPLOT and scanned the latest data from a satellite he had built a few months before. His science teacher from school had helped him get a scholarship to put it in orbit. He pulled up Skype and dialed Monty, who answered almost immediately. 

"Hey, are we still going to the movies tomorrow?" he asked. 

"Yeah, man, of course. I wanna stop by the arcade before though; I heard that AMC added one of those old Pac Man games to its collection. I'm really super excited. Also, you okay with me bringing Tanya along?" Jamie grinned to himself; Tanya was Monty's latest "venture," a pretty mixed girl who played flute for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. She was, at least, two years older, but that didn't seem to phase either of them. She was also a big gamer and so they bonded over  _Call of Duty_ and _The Last of Us_. Tanya took a liking to Jamie immediately and introduced him to her best friend, Savannah. Savannah was gorgeous, Jamie had to admit. Like she had this glow about her; she was always smiling and her hair was really nice and when she invited him over for dinner, her parents made the best Puerto Rican food he'd ever tasted. At the same time, he felt a bit inadequate, like he didn't quite deserve her or that he was betraying her for some reason. He was certainly attracted to her and they'd made out a couple of times, which always left him breathless and his heart racing, but at the same time...

"Sure, sure," Jamie responded amiably, leaning over to reach into his backpack. He pulled out two thick binders and laid them on his bed. He then set about his reading. 

 

 

 

Jamie lay in bed later that night, completely full from dinner. It was winter break now. His birthday had been four months ago and being sixteen felt completely out of place and it had been nearly three months since he'd seen that frost on the window but he had long given up hope on its meaning. 

He considered taking out  _Lord of the Rings_ or  _The Dresden Files_ and reading but he was much too tired. He wanted to sleep all through break. But as usual, when his mind wasn't preoccupied, his thoughts drifted to the incident that happened almost eight years ago now.  _Had it been a dream?_ he asked himself for the umpteenth time. It had felt so real. Caleb and Claude didn't talk about it, but Monty, Pippa, and Cupcake had acknowledged that they had been there, too. Monty had only brought it up once. Pippa knew better than that and Cupcake, her actual name being Cecilia, had moved onto university somewhere in the north. She was a French major. The last he'd heard she was thinking of moving to Montreal.  

 _What was_ he _doing?_ Climate research? Sure, sure, because so many people care about the effects of herding cattle on the climate. Or the effects of global warming on the spread of diseases. His friends certainly didn't. Besides, science didn't mesh well with magic, he figured. 

At the same time, he felt that if he didn't do his part in the climate battle, he'd lose everything for forever. And, to be honest, the subject material  _did_ fascinate him  _and_ it put him in good standing with his parents, which was a plus. 

Jamie was just berating himself on thinking too much and was about to turn over to go to sleep when he heard a crackling sound.  _No, don't look. Go to sleep_. But he couldn't help himself. He turned over softly in his bed and gazed at his window. Frost was slowly icing its way across the glass. Jamie stared at it, his heart hammering. The frost didn't stop either. It kept going until his entire window was covered and you didn't have to be a weather expect to know that real frost didn't act like that, not in Burgess, Pennsylvania, anyway. 

Slowly, and with baited breath, Jamie pushed aside the covers and sat up. His bare feet made next to no sound as he approached the window. Jamie then unlatched the window and pushed it open. Wintry air flew into his bedroom. The ground was covered in gentle snow and his town looked so peaceful. He shivered, goosebumps travelling up his arms and that throb in his shoulder blade returned. 

"Jack?" he asked of the night, his voice loud in the silence. There was no answer except a soft breeze... Jamie glanced around. Somewhere across his neighbourhood a dog barked amidst the forlorn whistle of a distant train. Jamie did not dare try again lest he feel even more foolish. The disappointment was already settling back in, as well as that familiar flare of anger mixed with betrayal. He closed his window, turned and stomped the few snowflakes that had entered his room into the carpet. Jamie was getting into bed when--

 _Knock knock_. 

He spun on a heel and almost tripped in his blankets. "What the--" He dashed back to the window and flung it open. "Hello--?"

_Whoosh!_

Something blue flew right at him, nearly knocking him over, and landing promptly at the foot of his bed. Jamie blinked and stared. A young man was sitting there, wearing his signature frosted hoodie and ancient brown slacks that seemed to be made from bark and leaves. The young man had white hair that glinted in the moonlight and bright blue eyes that twinkled mischievously. At the moment, the young man's lips were slightly parted in awe. 

"Jack fuckin' Frost," Jamie said, his voice hoarse, nearly unable to believe what he was seeing.

"You're big," the other responded. Jack Frost hopped nimbly to his feet and stood in front of Jamie, surveying him closely. "Your voice is deeper. You're taller and thicker. And you've got spots."

"I do  _not_ ," Jamie protested, but the words had trouble leaving his throat. He was having a hard time comprehending what he was seeing,  _who_ he was seeing _._ But there was no mistake - the spirit of winter stood before him, in his latest 300-year-old incarnation, though he didn't look a day older than eighteen. 

"You're grown up," said Jack in a voice very similar to Jamie's. He was staring blatantly at the teen, taking in his entire appearance; Jamie's broad shoulders, his height, the length of his brown hair, his eyes. Jamie felt oddly exposed.

"Well, I'm human. We tend to do that."

Jamie sat down on his bed across from Jack. He wanted to demand answers, wanted to rage at him, but he couldn't muster it all up at the moment. He was numb, cold that had nothing to do with winter. 

"How're you doing, Jamie?" Jack asked, breaking the silence. 

The boy just shrugged. "I'm all right, I suppose. Just... busy with school and stuff."

Jack stood up and walked around Jamie's room, picking up things and looking at them curiously. He gazed at the posters on the walls and the books on the bookshelves. His pale fingers danced lightly across the computer screen until his gaze fell upon Jamie's iPad. Jack picked it up, flipping it upside down and right side up again. His dark brows furrowed. 

"Wind patterns?" he said. Jamie got off the bed and snatched it back.

"Ocean currents," he snapped. "Not that you'd know about those."

Jack looked a bit taken aback but he recovered quickly and grinned. "I watch the weather forecast, too, you know."

"Why? You're a season."

Jack shrugged and perched upon one of Jamie's bedposts as though he were lighter than air. "I like to watch the weathermen get it wrong." His grin widened, white teeth glittering like icicles in the sunlight. If this had been a regular occurrence, Jamie would have laughed, but he found he was too angry. 

"You left," he said. "You left us."

Jack scratched his head, grin fading into uncertainty. "I didn't leave. I'm here now."

"It's been eight years!"

The incarnate looked shocked. "Has it really been that long... Yes, I suppose it has." He looked at Jamie, something like confusion and, maybe regret, written across his face. "Time passes differently for us, kiddo. Eight years is like a couple months to me at most. I didn't think--"

"No, you _didn't_ think!" Jamie was having none of it. "You didn't think about the effect this would have on all of us! We thought--we--we thought it was all--a--a dream or something! After witnessing that--we wondered what else--I mean--" Now the anger had overflowed and Jamie was stumbling over his words because of it; he had so many thoughts that he didn't know which to voice first. "How can you expect us to live our lives after--after that? I realised that Santa Claus actually  _exists_. The  _Easter Bunny_ is real. Do you know how stupid that sounds?"

Jack glared. "You think it's stupid now? You think it's stupid that there are people out there who are trying to protect the important things in life? You think being a _Guardian_ is stupid?"

Jamie made a frustrated noise and put his hands to his head. His shoulder was throbbing more painfully now. "I don't know  _what_ to think! I'm a scientist, Jack! I grew up with people all around me losing faith in the existence of Santa and the Easter Bunny and--I mean-- it's not  _easy_ to keep up these--these beliefs especially when I never see you!"

"Do you remember what I told you the last time?" Jack demanded, so irritated that it began to snow in the room. Jamie shivered again and grabbed a blanket to wrap around himself. 

"Yeah, how could I forget? That whole bullshit with the sun? That's different. The sun is scientifically  _proven_ to exist. The sun is there! I can see it! But you--and North and--you're just abstract  _ideas_ \--"

"Snow can't be scientifically proven?" Jack stood up, his fingers tightening around his staff. "When it snows, you doubt it?"

"I--well-- _no_ \--but it's not _magic--_ "

"Surely in history someone came up with the idea that some things that haven't been explained yet might appear to be magic? What about this guy here?" Jack pointed to a poster of great scientific quotes and he read: "'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."' Arthur C. Clarke."

"That's not the same," Jamie said helplessly. "You're not advanced technology. You're ideas."

"I thought you believed in the impossible, kiddo," Jack said. "You had that book about UFOs and yetis and--"

"Most of that was just BS! It was proven false. Just stupid conspiracies written by nutcases!" Jamie definitely wasn't about to admit that he was still interested in a lot of those 'stupid conspiracies.' 

Jack looked on sadly. "You really have grown up."

"Is that really such a bad thing?" Jamie asked. 

"I don't know. No. I guess not."

Jamie stared hard into Jack's eyes. "Tell me, do you protect adults, too?"

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> * Rapunzel/Tangled reference.

_February..._

"You never told me why you didn't go on vacation with the rest of your family." Every year, for Mr. Bennett’s birthday, the entire family would go down to Florida for a week and visit with Mr. Bennett’s mother, siblings, and cousins. And, normally, Jamie would go, too, because it was a nice distraction - and besides, some of his cousins had really attractive friends -- but this year, Jamie stayed home. And Jack had made a grand reappearance. Jamie had thought he'd be relieved and, maybe a part of him  _was_ relieved, but he still couldn't help but retain his anger. 

"Yeah, well, you never told me if you guard adults or not."

Jack sighed and ran a hand through his frosted hair. "It's not that simple, Jamie. There's a radical change that happens when you grow up and we, Guardians... we  _understand_. We know that we will lose you someday but as long as more and more children are born and are taught to believe...  _that's_ what keeps us alive."

"I'll be eighteen next year," Jamie said, crossing his legs. "And I still believe. My friends still believe. Well, I don't know about the twins but Monty and Pippa... they know it was real. We'll all be going to college next year, too, and what am I going to do then? I was the  _first_ to believe in you, Jack. The  _first_."

Jack was balanced lightly on his toes. "What do you want me to do about it? If you stop believing, I'll understand."

Jamie was exasperated, annoyed, confused. "I  _can't_ just stop believing! Not when I can see you now! And I know--I just know you're not a figment of my imagination, okay? I can't just--I can't let things go like that. Don't you get it? You changed things. Cupcake, Pippa, Monty, me... we're going to be the first adults to believe in you. There's gotta be something in that Guardian contract of yours about adults."

Jack was just shaking his head. He raised a hand and mimed a shape into the air and a dragon made of ice burst into existence. It flapped its tiny wings and flew around the room only to crash into the wall in a cascade of broken ice shards and water. "We don't interfere with the world of adults. Sometimes, we try to make their lives a little easier but it's rarely treated with the same respect. No one over a certain age ever thanks us. I'm the Guardian of Fun, Jamie. Fun as in building igloos and snowmen, snow days, and snowball fights. Most adults don’t appreciate the fun in those things.”

“Bullshit,” Jamie said, rather blatantly. He uncrossed his legs and lay down on his bed. “The Sandman is in charge of dreams, right? Even adults dream.”

“You’ll have to take that up with the Sandman. “

“In other words, you don’t know.”

“In other words, I don’t know,” Jack admitted, sounding annoyed and resigned at the same time. 

“We won’t stop believing,” Jamie reiterated insistently. 

Jack conjured up a chair of ice in mid-air and sat upon it. "They could make a movie about us and still, very few people would believe. Kids, maybe, but adults, definitely not. They'd need to believe in us the way they believe in a god or love--"

"What do you know about love?”

Jack burst out laughing so that his ice chair shattered. Jamie sighed inwardly, wondering how much cleaning up he'd have to do by the time Jack left again. 

"Hey, hey, I may be young--uh, figuratively--but I know _love_ , okay. I had a mother, and a sister." Jack laughed again. "And I love the snow-capped mountains and frozen lakes and the tundra--"

"I meant _in_ love with another  _person_ , aside from yourself, that is."

Jack did fall out of the air this time, but he landed lighter than a feather upon his feet. The laughter faded from his face like spring snow. “No. Well. Maybe. Twice, I suppose...once as a human, once as an immortal.” It was obvious that Jack didn’t really want to talk about it but Jamie waited silently, patiently. Jack made a face but continued. “Her name was Annabelle Mason. She was a New Yorker and she came from privilege so...my mother was really happy when Anna showed interest in me. Her father, uh, wasn’t too fond of the arrangement, because, you know, but we were betrothed and he leaned to like me well enough. Said I was a diligent worker and that I could sell anything to anyone. I liked her okay, I suppose. I don’t know if it was love but I enjoyed her company and... and we’d sneak around, you know... We were young.” It could be so hard to listen to Jack when he spoke like this because he sounded so much older but he looked so, _so_ young at times, like a lost little boy afraid of the whole wide world. But Jack had over three centuries of knowledge and experience and who knew what he remembered from past winter incarnations. “But the accident happened and I...” Jack’s voice faltered. “I never went back. I never... looked back.” He sighed. “As for the other one, she... was young, naive, but intelligent, yeah. Blonde hair. Green eyes*. _Good_. But she didn’t know I existed and she ended up with someone else and then she, like everyone else, passed away... and you just kinda move on. And when _you_ die, or stop believing, whichever comes first, I’ll move on again.” Jack’s voice was heavily strained now. 

“I’m never going to stop believing,” Jamie said firmly, laying on his back, hands clasped upon his chest as he stared up at the ceiling. 

“Then I’ll be standing at your grave.”

“No, you won’t,” Jamie responded stubbornly, knowing he wasn’t making sense or facing facts. But he didn’t recant his words and he refused to acknowledge the inevitability of death. Maybe he’d find a way to become immortal.

 

 

  
                                                     

A month had passed. Spring was showing its first signs of its annual arrival - little buds of flowers sprouted between patches of ice, birds were migrating back, and other animals were coming out of their hibernation. Jack had tried to make Jamie’s winter worthwhile but it was difficult. Jamie wasn’t ready to let his friends know that Jack was back and the winter incarnate seemed to sense this because he stayed out of sight whenever Jamie’s friends came around. 

It was early in the morning that Jack came by again, swooping into Jamie’s bedroom. Jamie had been up for a while working on his dissertation but had decided to take a short nap. When Jack landed on his bed, the teen cracked open an eye. 

“Hey, Jack,” he said softly, weariness lining his voice. The incarnate sat down beside him. 

“Hey, kiddo. Saw you were awake earlier but I had to make a quick run to the Falkland Islands.”

“How was it?”

“Oh, it’s great. I love the Falkland Islands. The people are so delightful. They _get_ it, you know? Being so close to Antarctica and whatever.”

Jamie smiled, feeling that familiar sensation in his stomach that he felt whenever he heard Jack talk about his life like that - it was so surreal and _awesome_ that it was getting harder to fathom. _A good friend of mine just told me he came back from the Falkland Islands. It took him a couple_ hours _._

_What a life._

Even though he was cold, thanks to Jack, Jamie kicked off the covers and stretched, chills racing up and down his spine and goosebumps appearing on his bare arms. Then he went and sat in the huge, comfortable leather chair in front of his computer. Quieter than a ghost, Jack followed, standing beside him and watching him work. Jamie opened up MARPLOT and began to monitor cold fronts and warm fronts as they collided on his screen. He switched views to watch the way the ocean currents were interacting with coming storms. There was an el niño acting up in the Pacific, which explained the previous winter and just how _wet_ it was. Jack picked up a huge stack of papers that were resting near the computer console. 

“What’s this?”

Jamie glanced at the papers nervously. “Uh... it’s a dissertation.”

“You wrote it?”

“...yeah.”

Jack's eyes widened. "It’s like... six hundred pages. What’s it about?"

Jamie was hesitant to respond. He really didn't want to bring it up. "It's... about climate change."

The incarnate flipped through it. "It's written here that temperatures are going to rise two to four degrees within the next century..."

Jamie snatched the stack away from the incarnate and said, "Yeah. It's called global warming. The effects of greenhouse gases on our environment."

"Glob--global w- _warming_? As in heating up? Getting hotter?" Jack sounded scared, horrified. 

"Yeah, uh, to put it simply."

Jack leaned heavily against his staff, eyes closed for a bit. His dark eyelashes were frosted over and for the first time, Jamie noticed the blue veins in Jack's hands, the wiry muscle in his lower arms. He seemed so  _real_. "You're worried about me going away," Jack said, without opening his eyes. 

"Well..."  _Not everything is about you_ , Jamie wanted to say. But at the same time... "Yeah, something like that." 

"I had my time," Jack said, doing that thing where he sounded incredibly old again. "My ice ages, for example. Not mine, specifically... but... they're still a part of me. There was a time when I had covered the Earth in so much snow, it reached the equator." He seemed very proud of this fact.

"We call that the Cryogenian period," Jamie muttered offhandedly, nodding. That dull ache throbbed under his right shoulder blade again. "That was over eight-hundred million years ago. And it was demolished by greenhouse gases produced by volcanoes."

Jack smiled. "It's going to happen again. Sooner or later."

"I don't  _want_ it to! Don't you get it? Global warming is  _not_ a good thing! If our planet increases globally by ten degrees in temperature, we will end up like  _Venus!_ Venus is uninhabitable! Everything is dead! Everything will  _die_! You, included!"

Jack didn't know what to say to that. 

 

 

  
           

It was fucking _hot_ when Jamie stormed into the house, sweaty, tired, and beat up from soccer. Along with Caleb and Claude, Jamie had joined a local team for the summer and Pennsylvania was having unusually muggy weather. 

“Jamie, is that you?” Sophie asked, popping her head out of her bedroom. She was blasting Rihanna’s _S & M_, which was totally appropriate for a 12-year-old and doing her summer homework before she went out for the evening with friends. 

“Not now, Sophie,” Jamie said. He wasn’t actually in a bad mood, but God, he smelled and he was filthy and he was stinking hot. 

“Ugh!” Sophie responded, wrinkling her nose. “I can smell you from all the way down here!”

“Shut up, runt.”

Sophie smirked, stuck out her tongue, and then disappeared back into her bedroom. Jamie stripped down to his boxers right in the corridor, tossed his clothes into the washer, set his cleats and shinguards into a side basket and disappeared into the bathroom. 

He turned the water to ‘freezing,’ took off his boxers, and stepped into the shower. Jamie flipped on the shower radio, which immediately started playing ‘My Girl’ by the Temptations and it clashed really badly with the sexual song Sophie was blasting a few doors down. It was summer, the game had gone badly, and Jamie was worn out. 

And the water just wasn’t getting cold enough. He shampooed his hair and scrubbed, but his skin still felt borderline feverish. Maybe he had come down with sun sickness? 

“I wanted freezing, not lukewarm!” he shouted over the music. He was about to get out and get a bucket of ice cubes but he heard a chuckle of laughter, glimpsed a trail of frost crawling along the glass doors, and barely had time to think, “ _No fucking way_ ,” when the water began to solidify - each little drop froze into beads of ice that collapsed mid-air to clatter to the ceramic floor. The warmth from the shower steam turned to cool mists and the water at Jamie’s feet turned to ice. 

“JACK!” Jamie yelled, yanking open the glass doors and nearly slipping as he stumbled out of the shower, cold, naked, teeth chattering. The radio sputtered and died. 

And there he was - the Prince of fucking Winter - leaning against the wall, laughter written across his smug face. 

“Y-y-you fucking ass-asshole--” Jamie stammered, pushing Jack away but the incarnate just laughed some more and floated out of reach. 

“You should be careful with what you wish for,” he said, his grin so broad, it stretched almost ear to ear. Jamie lunged forward after him, barely managing to score a punch that just nicked Jack’s shoulder. 

“I’m--so--fucking--cold--” he snapped. “You d-dick--”

Jamie was actually shivering now. The entire bathroom had turned into a freezer; the bathroom mirror was covered in frost, icicles hung from the faucets, the toilet water was a small pond, and everywhere Jamie dripped, the water turned to ice.  _What a mess._

As though to further prove how much of an asshole he could be, Jack reached out and placed a hand to Jamie’s stomach and, though the touch was brief, frost trickled rapidly over the muscular indentations in Jamie’s skin. Jamie shoved him away furiously. 

“You--you fucking--prick--” His teeth were really chattering hard now. 

Jack roared with laughter. 

“Get me a towel! You froze this one!”

“What?”

“You heard me! Get me a fucking t-towel, Jack!”

“Sorry, what was that?” Jack grinned and as Jamie made another move for him, he opened the door, dancing just out of reach. Jamie grabbed Sophie’s blowdryer. 

“I will hit you with this---”

Jack darted down the hallway, Jamie chasing after him. 

What a sight that made... Jamie prayed his mother wouldn’t come upstairs and see him running after an invisible spirit while stark naked. That would require too much explaining. Sophie’s music was really loud but she could come out at any second--

“Jamie?”

 _Shit_. 

His mother stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Is that you I hear racing up and down the hall?”

Shooting a glare at Jack, Jamie snatched a towel from the linen closet near the washer and dryer, wrapped it around his waist, and went to stand at the top of the stairs. “Uh...yeah, that was me, sorry,” he said sheepishly. 

Furrowing her brows, his mother walked up a few steps, and peered at him over her thick-rimmed spectacles. “Are your lips blue, Jamie?”

Jamie stared at her. “Uh, are they? I was just taking an ice cold shower.” He glanced at Jack, who was leaning casually against the washer and dryer unit, a small smirk on his face. 

“Well... just be careful,” she said and then walked off. Jamie made a face at Jack and went into his bedroom. The incarnate followed. Jamie unwrapped the towel and went over to his dresser, pulling out drawers to look for a pair of boxers. 

“One of these days, someone’s gonna throw you into a volcano,” Jamie said as-a-matter-of-factly. 

“Oh yeah? Is that a threat, Captain Planet?” Jack started humming the theme song. Jamie threw a wad of socks at him but Jack just froze them in a block of ice and they crashed to the floor and shattered. 

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Jamie said. “You’re single-handedly demolishing my room as the years go by though.”

Jack gave a shrug as though to say, ‘like you really care.’ 

For the next fortnight, Jack hung around, as though emphasising winter clinging to life as spring began to bloom. They had snowball fights and attempted to build an igloo but it collapsed. Jamie invited Pippa and Monty over and they enlisted all of the children in the neighbourhood into the most epic of epic snowball battles. Cecilia, AKA Cupcake, had returned from her study abroad, and she, too, joined in. As winter faded more and more,  there would be times when Jack would disappear for several hours, covering the wintry parts of the planet in snow and frost and delighting children around the world. But he always returned. Jamie's voice, the way it sounded so betrayed, when he'd said, so long ago, "You left," haunted Jack. And he realised that though he's the Guardian of Fun and he's a protector of children, his task had changed a bit because now adults were starting to believe, too. 

When spring finally reared its cheerful, yet moody, head, Jack said his good-byes and departed for the Southern Hemisphere entirely. 

Jamie and his friends were constantly on his mind. They were growing up and their beliefs were still as strong as anything. 

Jamie had been right: everything was changing. 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

The mosquitos and spiders were starting to venture into hibernation. Jamie was parked by a beach near Milton State Park. His father owned a boat in the marina and he was thinking of taking it down the Susquehanna later. The sun was about to set and the last of summer’s fireflies were creating a grand finale. Jamie had laid a plaid blanket over the hood of his Oldsmobile and he was resting on it, back propped up by the windshield, and he was just watching the boats in the bay, and the stars slowly make their appearance in the sky. He was quite comfortable and he took several deep breaths to relax himself further. He’d nearly dozed off when he heard the sound of tires on gravel behind and he jerked around to see a familiar red pick-up truck. 

The truck parked and Pippa jumped out of the driver’s seat carrying something in one hand, and an enormous purse slung over the opposite shoulder. 

“Jamie!” she called, coming up to him. She handed him what was in her hand - a six pack of Blue Moon. “Move over, I’m comin’ up.” She hopped onto the hood and settled in next to Jamie. They each took a beer. 

“Old Man Drew says hi. He wanted to give you this.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a tiny parcel wrapped in white tissue paper. Giving Pippa a questioning look, Jamie took the parcel and began to unwrap it. A silver pocket watch fell into Jamie’s lap. 

“Holy shit,” Jamie remarked in wonder, holding the pocket watch up to look at it more closely. Intricate leaf and ivy patterns were engraved on the back and when he opened it up, the crystal face glinted in the setting sun and beautiful leaf sequins floated just over the face. 

“He said it’s for your seventeenth birthday.” 

“This is...this is way cool. I’ll need to stop by the liquor store and say thanks. _Wow._ ” Jamie continued to marvel over the pocket watch, the crystalline silver chain glimmering beside it and then he looped it over his neck for safe keeping. 

He leaned back against the windshield, Pippa beside him, both gazing up at the fading sky. They stayed like that, silent, appreciative, for nearly a half hour. Jamie thought that Pippa may have fallen asleep but then she spoke, 

“I think Old Man Drew’s granddaughter likes you.”

“Was the pocket watch her idea?”

Pippa nodded. “Yeah. But it’s Old Man Drew’s watch. Family heirloom, I think. He said it was crafted hundreds of years ago. Sam’s going into watch making...” Sam was Pippa’s newest boyfriend. He was a freshman in college and a decent guy, it seemed, but Pippa didn’t think it was going to last. She also didn’t seem to care about it lasting either. “His granddaughter is really smart. She works over at the bait shop on Main. You’d like her.”

“Would I,” Jamie stated, somewhat offhandedly, not looking at her. A cool breeze swept over them. Pippa took his hand in hers. 

“You’re not interested, are you.”

Jamie blew out some air. “No,” he admitted quietly, “not really.”

She squeezed his hand. “That’s okay.”

Jamie gave a small smile. “I know. 

They finished their beers and then Pippa jumped off the hood, kicked off her shoes, rolled up her jeans, and hopped into the water. She squealed at the cold and splashed around for a bit before running back. 

“That felt good! I needed that,” she said, giving Jamie a hug. “Anyway... so, we’re going out for your birthday, right?”

Jamie nodded. 

“Great!” She kissed Jamie on the cheek, they exchanged a few more words and then she climbed into her truck, and, with a small wave, she drove off. Jamie stood and watched the truck disappear down the road and then he turned, grabbed the blanket off the hood, and walked over to the shoreline. He set the blanket on the sand and then lay down on it, staring up at the sky some more. 

The moment he closed his eyes, he felt the slightest shadow pass over him and a cold wash over his heart where the pocket watch lay. 

“It suits you,” said Jack. 

“You’re early,” teased Jamie, without opening his eyes. He felt Jack sit beside him and when Jamie opened his eyes and lifted his head, he saw the Prince of Winter, cross-legged, his staff standing by itself near him, and those intensely sapphire eyes gazing down at him. Jamie moved over and placed his head in Jack’s lap. The incarnate’s cool fingers danced lightly over his face and through his hair. Jack smelled of sky and wind and rain. Jamie breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and relaxed.  

“We should go out onto the water,” he murmured, feeling so loose and chill. “Do some night boating...”

Eventually, Jamie got up and packed up his things. He was surprised when Jack decided to sit in the passenger seat of Jamie’s Oldsmobile but he made no complaint. They drove to the marina and Jamie went to ready the boat. He checked the gas and the battery. He wiped down the terminals and checked the hoses for cracks. Jack watched with interest as Jamie turned on the VHF radio, adjusted the rudder and shafts, and changed the spark plugs. It took him all of thirty minutes to do everything and he started up the boat, which hummed quietly, and steered out of the marina and into the bay. The moon was high in the sky and Jack stared at it, his expression unreadable. 

Then he came to stand beside Jamie at the wheel and the boat drifted down the river towards open water. The river was calm; it was higher than usual thanks to spring rains, and the boat glided effortlessly across its mirror-like surface. 

“If you freeze the water, I’ll throw you in,” Jamie said, grinning. 

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

The boat drifted into open water, green and red lights blinking around them as other people also sat upon their own boats, celebrating the last warm days of the year. A fish snatched a bug out of the air, causing a ripple in the calm water. Jamie turned off the engine and let everything become silent so all that could be heard was the soft splashing sounds of the river against the boat. Peace descended upon them. Jamie grabbed one of the beers left over from the six-pack Pippa had brought, jumped over the front railing and lay sprawled out across the bow. When Jack floated over to him, Jamie sat up, took a swig of beer, and said, 

“Is it going to be a cold winter?”

Jack reached out to touch the beer and when he did, the glass frosted over. “Do you want it to be?”

“I want snow. Lots and lots of snow. Six feet of snow. I want snow-covered cars and playgrounds. I want snow days. I want to have _fun_.”

Jack grinned. “I can make that happen.”

Jamie was quiet for a moment. “You mentioned a family not too long ago. What happened?”

It was a very personal question, Jamie knew, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Jack declined to answer. At the same time, however, he knew, felt it in his gut, something visceral, that Jack would tell him and wouldn’t make him feel bad for inquiring either. It was like Jamie could read Jack’s thoughts, saw him hesitate, but also saw that the incarnate didn’t mind. 

“It happened a long time ago,” Jack began, his voice reminiscent of a gentle snow flurry. His eyes nearly frosted over as he gazed out across the bay. Jamie stared down between them, and with a light finger, he traced the blue veins in Jack’s bare ankle. “Around three hundred years ago, more or less. It was a mild winter, as far as ‘mild’ went back then anyway. I had done some house work for General Mason, replaced some pipes, and was checking on my village’s cattle for Mr. Montgomery. My sister, Eva, she... she wanted to play, so we went out onto the ice of this pond near where we lived.” Jack moved his hands together, forming a crystalline ball of ice between them. He drew his hands apart and the ball split into smaller ones and each revolved rapidly in mid-air and began to shape into something else - the first one became a young girl, dancing through the air, another became a young man with a staff that resembled a Shepherd’s crook, and the remaining formed trees and the pond Jack mentioned. The girl and the boy - Jack and his sister, Eva - stood on the ice. Jamie watched, mesmerised, lulled by Jack’s voice and the beautiful display before him. “The ice began to crack,” he said. “I should have seen it coming, really. I knew winter _,_ like really _knew_ it. My great-grandparents had come over to the colonies from England and the seasons had been drilled into us, generation after generation. When to pick corn, which berries were safe to eat, where to go for nuts and the likes even in the thickest of snowfalls, how to hunt, and so on. I knew ice, I knew how to test its strength, I knew how strong it was simply by looking at it. But I was... I was so caught up in the game, in my sister’s desire to have fun. Our father had just passed away months before and Eva had been so depressed and I...I wanted to make her feel better. I wanted to see her happy.” 

Jack stopped as though he needed to compose himself. The ice figurines revolved in mid-air. Jamie rubbed Jack’s calf reassuringly and the incarnate continued. “So, the ice began to crack. I told her to trust me, I told her that I’d get her off the ice and at first, she didn’t believe me. She thought I was playing with her, that I was lying. That I wasn’t being serious, but I was. Inside...inside I was screaming, panicking. So...I told her, it was like hopscotch. Just jump! As lightly as you can! And as far away from the crack as possible.”

Jack stopped again. The figurine of his sister was crouched as though ready to make a jump. His own figurine was beckoning her, encouraging her. Jamie couldn’t tell if Jack was crying or not but there were frosted flecks on his cheeks. He wanted to wipe them away, but he stayed his hand. Some boundaries should not be crossed, he figured, not now. 

“She jumped.” The figurine jumped. “I grabbed her and threw her across the ice towards the bank.” Eva went skidding into the snowy side of the pond. “I was going to follow but she screamed...”

Jamie shivered. He could almost hear Eva’s anguished cry, like a ghost of a memory, an echo of a past life. 

“I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was...I had been too caught up in her safety and the ice cracked beneath me and I fell.” Jack’s figurine slipped below the ice. “I...I guess I drowned. I didn’t know anything about swimming back then. Never needed to know. And it was so cold...”

The ice figures exploded into a thousand snowflakes and they floated lazily to the surface of the boat and melted into condensation drops. “I didn’t know,” Jack said, his voice hoarse. His breath came out in ragged gasps. “ _I didn’t know_. I didn’t remember them when I came back around. I...I didn’t get to remember them, Jamie. For the three-hundred-years of my life, I didn’t ever remember them until... until the time you and I met. It happened here. I’d seen you cross that pond dozens of times. And I never _knew_.”

Jamie couldn’t stand the intensity in Jack’s eyes so he kept his head bowed. He couldn’t imagine the resentment and anger he’d feel if he’d lost Sophie but only found out about it after three centuries of ignorance. Jack could have gotten Eva to believe, Jamie was sure of it.

 

 

  
 

_April..._

Jamie retrieved the mail and as he walked up the path towards his house, he sifted through it. His heart leapt into his throat when he saw the letter. He slowed down and with baited breath and trembling fingers, he opened the letter and read the first lines...

 _He did it_. 

He couldn’t believe it. Jamie stopped and re-read the letter again. _To Mr. Jamie Bennett: We are pleased to inform you that..._ Yes. It was clear. He opened up the rest of the pages in the envelope. Yes, yes. It was all there. Everything he needed. He actually had something to look forward to after his internship this coming summer. 

Jamie walked into the house, kicking off his boots, hanging his jacket, and setting his umbrella to the side to dry off. He couldn’t wait to tell his parents. 

“Mom?” he called, walking through the living, hallway, and dining room. “Dad?”

When he walked into the kitchen, however, both of them were standing there, Mr. Bennett leaning against the kitchen counter, and his mother standing with her arms folded over her chest. It was as though the kitchen were ten degrees hotter with tension. 

“Jamie,” Mrs. Bennett said, glancing nervously at her husband. “We have something to tell you.” Well, that certainly didn’t sound good. Jamie looked at his father, then his mother, then back to his father. Shawn Evan Bennett was a landscaper and a carpenter for a company that was headquartered in Bellefonte. He was of average height but a slender build, and at the moment, he looked particularly rustic and wolfish, with scruff on his chest and up his jaw line, an umber, form-fitting long-sleeved V-neck, belted chestnut corduroys and construction boots. His mother, Marion, was slender, tom boyish, and was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, had her hair tied up messily into a bun and was currently gazing him from behind her librarian glasses. Mr. Bennett was from upstate New York and Mrs. Bennett was raised in Houston but you’d never have known by their accents. Or anything really. As far as locals knew (minus Old Man Drew who knew everyone and everything), Shawn Bennett and Marion Arnell were Pennsylvanians through and through. Active in the community, helpful, and kind people. 

And at the moment, those two helpful and kind folks were looking at Jamie like they were uncertain with how to proceed - which meant something really bad had happened. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Jamie, your father and I...” Marion glanced at Shawn again, “...we’re getting a divorce.”

The elation Jamie had felt earlier vanished. The happy balloon inside him popped. 

“That...that... you’re joking, right.” 

Neither of them answered outright. Jamie’s father looked down and to the side. His mother just gave him a look of pity. 

“No, no, no,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “That’s not right. Come _on_! I know you two married right after high school but--but you’ve been together for like, twenty _years_!”

“Jamie--” Mr. Bennett began but his son cut him off. 

“No. What are you guys _thinking_? What about Sophie? I’m leaving for college this year, I’ll be gone to Canada in a couple months and you’re just... she’s...” He was having a hard time forming a coherent sentence. “Sophie...she’s just---she’s entering high school this year, the hardest fucking years of her life and you’re just... you’re just gonna let that go? She needs you! I won’t be around!”

“We’re going to sit down and talk with her,” Mr. Bennett said as reasonably as he could. 

“No fucking way. She shouldn’t hear it from _you_. She needs to hear it from _me_. I’m her big brother. _I_ can tell her.”

“Jamie, honey, if we continued to stay together, it could end up being worse for--”

Jamie put up a hand. “Then you should have done it years ago when she was too young to really know what was going on. I could have handled it! I could have dealt with it! But you waited until _now_ , when I won’t be around to protect her!” Mr. Bennett opened his mouth but Jamie ranted on, “This is complete _bullshit_. Forget it. Just... forget it.”

And with that, he tossed the letter into the trash and ran out of the kitchen, jumping the stairs three at time until he came to his bedroom. He turned on his music and a song by Imagine Dragons blasted through his room. 

“Jack!” Jamie demanded, his heart racing, trying hard not to punch something. “Jack, where the fuck are you! I know winter’s over but--”

And the incarnate was there, flying through his window, landing in front of him. He didn’t even have time to ask what was up before Jamie grabbed Jack by the collar of his sweatshirt and slammed him into the wall. He furiously pressed his lips to Jack’s, relishing in their chill comfort. Jamie shoved a knee between Jack’s legs causing the Prince of Winter to groan. 

It was fast and rough and desperate though tragically one-sided. Jack only seemed to give as much as he thought Jamie needed and no more and Jamie would have been disappointed if he wasn’t enjoying the freezing breath that entered his mouth, cleared his mind, calmed his nerves. He was numb and wanted to remain that way, but not because of a divorce. He wanted Jack to keep him numb and unfeeling. He wanted Jack to lead, to demand Jamie's attention so that Jamie couldn’t focus on anything else. His entire body was getting colder and colder and, for a moment, he thought he saw his bedroom disappear entirely to be replaced with night skies and tundras. But as soon as he drew his attention back to the room, it reappeared, a hallucination of his ever-increasing desire. 

Jamie drew back a little, letting out a breath of misty air, before placing his lips to Jack’s neck, tongue gliding over the incarnate’s Adam’s apple and down until he reached the hollow of Jack’s throat. One hand clutched at the Prince of Winter’s sweatshirt, causing the frost on it to melt in the heat of his palm and the other hand was working its way underneath that sweatshirt. Jamie could feel the incarnate’s abdominal muscles rippling under his touch, the cool firm skin, solid, _real_. 

Jamie moved his hand downwards, letting it inch into Jack’s pants but then an annoyingly familiar voice demanded from the doorway to his bedroom, 

“ _Jack Frost?_ ” 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

There, in the doorway, wearing an exasperated expression accompanied by a _Star Wars_ tee and ratty jeans, mascara, Avril Lavigne eyeliner, and overly-straightened blonde hair, stood Sophie Bennett - Jamie’s snarky demon child of a sister. Jamie stepped away from Jack so quickly, one would’ve thought Jack had been contaminated with the zombie virus. 

“Can’t you, at least, remember to close the door?” Sophie demanded, bemused. “God, what if Mom had walked in and seen you making out with the wall?” She handed Jamie a crumpled piece of paper. “And next time, don’t throw out something so important.” It was the letter. “Congrats on Notre Dame. I know it was your first choice.”

“Congrats?” Jack repeated curiously. “For what?” He was gazing between Jamie and Sophie, probably taking in Sophie’s older appearance and attitude, and wondering why she was congratulating her older brother.  

“What, you’re his boyfriend and he didn’t tell you?”

“Sophie!”

She just shrugged. “He was accepted to Notre Dame University. It’s a full ride by the looks of it.”

“University?” Jack repeated yet again, as though attempting a foreign language. “College?”

Jamie sighed, running a hand through his hair. This conversation was not going in the direction he had at all expected but he wasn’t about to complain either. “Yeah, it’s in Indiana.”

“You’re gonna go, right?” Sophie asked, hands on her hips, looking at him expectantly. 

“Uh...” 

“Why did I even bother asking?” she continued over him. “Of course, you’re going. You _better_ go and if you don’t, I’m gonna haunt you in your sleep.”

“You’re not dead, Sophie.”

“No, but you will be if you don’t go.”

Jack started laughing. “She’s a feisty one, huh!”

“Shut up, Jackass,” she said. “I’m not the one dating a season. By the way, the Allens invited us over for dinner later. Everyone’s going.” She turned to go but then spoke over her shoulder, “Oh, friendly reminder _again_ : please close the door.” Sophie left.    

“”Jackass,’” Jack said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s _totally_ original. She’s definitely learning from the best.”

“She’s been on a _Dogma_ kick recently,” Jamie said, sighing again and rolling his eyes. “You’d think she’d be into Loki but she prefers Metatron; he’s like her idol.”

“What’s _Dogma_?”

“What? Oh. It’s, uh, a film about...” There were times Jamie forgot Jack wasn’t human. “You know, nevermind. Doesn’t matter.” There was an awkward pause. Well, it was probably awkward for Jamie but Jack was too busy trying to figure out what had just happened. The divorce, the kiss... they’d been momentarily forgotten but now they came back, like a bag of bricks. 

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “About the...about what I did. I should’ve asked or...”

“It’s all right,” Jack responded, a smile poking at the corners of his lips. It was such an innocent expression that Jamie almost felt evil for what he did. And when the Prince of Winter said nothing more on the subject, Jamie felt like he had been left hanging. Then again, if Jack wasn’t making it into a big deal, maybe it _wasn’t_ a big deal after all...   

And Jamie still had no idea what he was going to do about the divorce. The ache in his shoulder blade wasn’t going away. 

Maybe the dinner would provide a nice distraction.       

 

 

  
 

Dinner did, indeed, prove to be a brilliant distraction. Mrs. Allen and Monty’s older brother, Jake, were setting the table when Jamie walked in with Sophie. Jack had gone south to spread some wintry joy. Caleb, Claude, Pippa, and Monty were lounging in the living room, watching the twins play video games, snacking on Doritos and pretzels. They were discussing animal noises. 

“So, I googled what a sloth mating call would sound like,” said Caleb, as he destroyed his brother in _Call of Duty_. “And it’s definitely like--” He made a strangled screeching sound that kinda resembled ‘ewwgghhwaaaaaeeeeeedghghieieee.’

“Why the hell would you wanna know that?” Monty asked from the sofa. He had taken up the entire couch and his legs were draped over one of the arm rests. 

“Because Kris said I should,” Caleb responded. 

“Is this another one of his life lesson things?”

“Yeah, but like the rest of them, I don’t get it.” Caleb suddenly swore. 

“BAM!” shouted Claude. “That’s what you get, bro!”

“S’not fair; you had a better team!” Caleb slammed down the controller and turned to glare at Pippa as though it was her fault. “Your turn.” She smirked at him, grabbed the controller, and sat down beside Claude. Sophie was busy shuffling a deck of cards. Jamie sat down on the floor as she dealt cards to he and Monty. 

“Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight everyone?” Pippa asked, just after she and her team crushed Claude’s. 

“Kids still do that?” Jake said, as he came down the stairs. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Man, that was shit we did when _we_ were young.”

“Well, just because _you’re_ a dinosaur...” Monty began, scowling over his hand of cards. “Doesn’t mean that we....” He paused, confused. 

“Monty, stop for one full second and think about where this is going,” Sophie said. 

Jake just raised an eyebrow. “All right then. Dinner in five, kids.” And he disappeared into the kitchen. 

“Man,” complained Monty, “I hate hearts. Probably because I don’t have one.”

“That’s because you have a spade,” Jamie said, peering over Monty’s shoulders and pointing at a card in his hand. 

“Hey! No cheating!”

But it didn’t really matter because a couple minutes later, Mrs. Allen called them all into the dining room. The table had been stretched out and set for nine. A bowl of fried chicken was in the middle, surrounded by bowls of mashed potatoes, green beans, steamed carrots, corn, and rolls. 

“Grab your drinks outta the cooler before you sit down,” Jake said, pointing to an enormous cooler next to the wall. “I’m in charge of cleaning up so the less dishes the better.”

“I’m going to use forty plates just because you said that,” Monty remarked. 

“Do that and I’ll murder you in your sleep.”

“And then I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Everyone at the table had gone quiet to listen. 

“Then I’ll call the Ghostbusters to get rid of you.”

“Too bad. They’re retired.”

Jake pouted. “You win that one, bro, but next time--” He pointed a fork at his younger brother. “Next time, you’ll be sorry.”

Monty yawned as obnoxiously as he could. “I’m terrified. Really.”

“A basketball game, it is,” Jake said, scooping an enormous lump of mashed potatoes on his plate. “And you have to play.”

Monty closed his mouth with a _snap!_ “Oh, fuck that.”

“Language!” Mrs. Allen said, but she was grinning. 

Just as everyone had settled, Mr. Allen came home from work. He kicked off his shoes, hung up his hat and jacket and came over to sit with them. “Looks great, sweetie,” he said, pecking his wife on the cheek. He looked over at Jamie. “Jamie! I heard the good news! Congratulations!”

Jamie glanced at his sister. “Thank you, sir. Word sure does travel fast.” Sophie smirked a tight-lipped smirk. 

“Monty got accepted to Virginia Tech,” Jake said. “Though I’m not sure how he did it.”

“Yeah, _how_ did you pull that one off?” Mrs. Allen said. 

Everyone laughed. Monty rolled his eyes. “O ye, of little faith,” he said, trying to sound offended. “Actually though, I dunno. I bullshitted the interview _and_ the essay.”

“Monty!” his mother sounded scandalised. 

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Allen,” Pippa said, nodding knowingly. “He does that for everything.”

“It was a great interview though,” Monty pointed out, scarfing down three rolls in one go. 

“...Dude,” Claude said, “When the interviewer asked you what classes were your favourites in high school, you said you didn’t know because you _slept_ through all of them.” Monty just shrugged as everyone laughed some more. 

“Think that’s bad?” Jamie said, through a mouthful of carrots. “I was trying to cheat off Monty on this final exam that I’d totally forgotten to study for and all of his answers to the questions on the test were ’42.’”

“Oh yeah, I was going through my philosophy phase then,” Monty agreed, nodding. “Wisest words in the universe: _Don’t panic_.”

“I don’t think you’d know what it’s like to actually panic even if you were in a panic zone.” Pippa gave him a sardonic look. “ _Anyway_. Congrats on Virginia Tech, Monty. We all doubted you.” He flipped her off good-naturedly. The conversation turned to everyone else and the colleges they were going to. Caleb said he was taking a year off to do a Europe trip with some friends. Claude was going to the University of South Carolina on a football scholarship, even though his passion was really architecture and civil engineering. Pippa had applied to several schools and her first choice was a school in Savannah, Georgia, but she figured she’d probably end staying in the state to save money. 

“I don’t even really know what I want to major in yet,” Pippa said. “I know I like art but I don’t know what field or what I’d use it for. My mom says I’m being stupid not having a backup plan but I figured being undeclared at a local school for a while might give me some more time to decide and it’d be cheaper.” She sighed. 

“Hey, I hear ya,” Jamie said. “I wouldn’t be going to Notre Dame if I didn’t get a scholarship.” _Plus the divorce_... he thought, bitterly. He glanced at Sophie, wondering when he’d get around to telling her. The sooner, the better though. That wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. 

“So, what’s your major?” asked Mr. Allen. 

“Do you guys even need to ask?” Monty said, rolling his eyes. “He talks about it all the time. He’s, like, been working on this climate dissertation since ninth grade.”

“A dissertation?” repeated Mr. Allen, impressed. “What’s your topic?”

“It’s really just about all the steps we need to take to slow down climate change and how we’re going to need to adapt as a species. That’s... putting it simply.”

“And why aren’t _you_ going to Virgina Tech instead of Monty, huh?” asked Jake, giving his brother a sly glance. 

“Oh, shut up,” Monty said. “Jamie, I want a signed copy.”

“Of what? _My dissertation_? Please, like you’re gonna read that.”

“Of course, I’m not going to _read_ it. But if you become famous, I want a signed copy that I can sell.”

Sophie snickered. “That was so mean.”

The rest of dinner went like that, more or less. Once or twice, Jamie thought he saw frost appear on the windows or a flicker of blue zip by, but the moment he looked more closely, it was gone. Jack Frost had migrated for the summer and Jamie briefly wondered if he’d ever come back. 

 

 

Canada ended up being a turning point in his life, one that he desperately needed. But the events leading up to it were messy. Jamie had been right: Jack had disappeared for the summer and no matter what Jamie said or did, he didn’t show up again. At first, he dwelled on this, overcome with guilt, but Pippa, who had been dutifully informed by Sophie that Jack had returned again as well as the _nature_ of Jack’s return (Jamie yelled at Sophie for a week about this), managed to convince Jamie to leave his funk, that he’d be going up to Canada and possibly seeing Jack there and, even if he didn’t, he’d be having a lot of fun. 

Along with the disappearance of Jack Frost, Jamie finally sat down with Sophie and told her about their parent’s divorce. It was easier than he’d expected but the reaction he received made him uneasy. Sophie didn’t cry or rage. In fact, she didn’t even seem surprised. She just sorta nodded and accepted it. _Kids these days..._ Jamie had no idea what she was truly feeling. Sophie had always been a somewhat stoic child but he knew it wasn’t because she didn’t care, it was because she preferred to release her true emotions in private. Last year, Sophie came home from school after a bad breakup with some douche Jamie had hated from the beginning. She didn’t say anything to anyone but Jamie heard her muffled sobs when he passed by her bedroom later that night. As calm as an undisturbed lake, Jamie showed up at the boy’s house pretending to be a grave digger. Jamie, as cool as ice, then proceeded to tell the boy that if he didn’t make it up to Sophie in one way or another, he’d personally dig the boy an early grave. 

Needless to say, Sophie didn’t have to pay for any of her meals at school for the rest of the year and used the money she saved, coupled with her allowance, to buy herself a new phone. She was then invited to homecoming by one of the most popular guys in her grade, who she turned down in front of the entire Student Council, and ended up going with one of her friends. The incident had earned her eternal fame. 

So when Sophie had responded to the news of their parent’s divorce with such calmness and acceptance, Jamie didn’t know what to think. But he didn’t pry. He just made sure he was there for her as much as possible, right up until he boarded the plane to Canada. He told her to call or e-mail him at least once a week, which she did. 

The internship in Canada was supposed to be three months long and it was under the direction of renowned climatologists Kevin Anderson and Myles Allen (unrelated to Monty). Joanna Haigh, a meteorologist with a specialty in solar sciences, also came up to hang out with everyone. What everyone called ‘Home Base’ was located in the southern part of Manitoba, but every few weeks, Jamie and the crew would take a ride up to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre to check their instruments and catch up with other groups stationed all over Canada. For the last half of the internship, they camped out near the Athabasca River basin where they enjoyed the northern lights almost every other night. 

During the internship, Jamie made quite a few friends. A team of free runners from all over the globe were actually part of the internship - one, in particular, was a boy named Levi, who was Dutch-Canadian. His field of study was oceanography and green sciences. He was known for helping build one of the largest and completely eco-friendly aquaponics systems in the world before he turned twenty-two. 

Levi had taken a liking to Jamie right off the bat. Every night, depending on how early they returned to camp, the interns and professors built a rather large campfire and everyone roasted marshmallows and hotdogs and burgers (Joanna had, actually, picked a bunch of vegetables on one of their excursions and she managed to create a delicious stir fry dinner that set everyone’s tastebuds ablaze). Levi and Jamie sat near each other on the logs by the campfire and they were often the last to go to bed, engaging each other in conversations ranging from scientific and intellectual to sheer stupidity and goofiness. 

At the interim period, Levi, Jamie and the rest of the free runners went down to Edmonton to see Skrillex in concert and the two of them danced with this woman named Qila Stefánsdóttir from Kulusuk, Greenland. She was closer to Levi’s age but Jamie didn’t care. Later, all of them, high and slightly inebriated, went back to the hotel but Jamie, feeling queasy, left early. Levi came back to the room hours later, higher than a kite. He woke Jamie up and they talked but about what, Jamie still couldn’t remember. He just remembered Levi's excited chatter - that was Levi though, he talked a lot, and Jamie loved to listen to him. 

During the stint in northern Manitoba, they all went to a barter fest with the locals. There was an enormous bonfire that rose, easily, twenty feet into the sky. They returned to Home Base a few days later, Jamie’s satchel loaded with all sorts of random things: high end snow pants, a loaf of homemade bread, homemade cookies, a tiny meteorite, some crystals, handmade Christmas ornaments, and a braided leather bracelet that Levi had gotten for him. Jamie never took off the bracelet. 

Later that night, underneath an astounding green aurora, Levi and Jamie were, yet again, the last ones remaining by the campfire. Over the hill were the tents so the night was incredibly quiet, save for crickets and the crackling of the flames. They were sitting, lounging on a log. Levi was on his back, staring up at the sky, the green so bright, it reflected on his skin. Though the night was cool, the fire was so warm that both of them had stripped down to basic sweatpants and t-shirts. 

“I admire what you do, Jamie,” Levi said quietly, changing topic. Jamie just looked at him in surprise. 

“Thanks,” he responded. “That was really random but I...appreciate it.” He smiled even though Levi was too busy gazing at the aurora. He was long and lanky, almost like Monty, but nowhere near as tall. Also because of free running, he was more muscular. Levi’s hair was ashy-blond but in the firelight, it shimmered gold. 

“You’re also getting quite good at free running.”

“I can’t handle all these compliments,” Jamie said, laughing nervously. 

Levi then sat up and scooted over to Jamie’s log. “Well, it’s true. I’ve never seen anyone pick it up as easily as you have.”

Jamie didn’t say anything. He couldn’t, really. Levi would never understand his motivation for learning anyway.

He was acutely aware of the other boy’s proximity, too, and it made him even more nervous. Nervous, but also a bit exhilarated. Levi was still watching him when Jamie felt a light hand on his lower thigh. Feeling a tad light-headed, Jamie watched Levi move his hand slowly up his leg. It was dangerously close and finally, Jamie lifted his head to look back at the free runner. Levi’s eyes were amber-coloured, he noticed. Something he hadn’t bothered to take note of before. _How interesting_ , Jamie thought wildly and then he felt fingers graze over his budding erection. _Shit_. He let out the smallest of sighs as Levi began to rub him gently between the legs. 

“Fuck,” Jamie whispered breathlessly. Levi’s gaze was intense, _too_ intense. Hawkish, Jamie decided, and feeling absolutely reckless, he leaned in and kissed him. Mostly to avoid that intense stare, it's agonising scrutiny. It was supposed to be a brief kiss, just something light on the lips, but Levi’s free hand found the back of Jamie’s head and he held him there. Before Jamie knew it, Levi’s tongue was in his mouth and the kiss seemed to heat up by at least five hundred degrees. He was on fire. 

Jamie pulled back and Levi pushed him to the ground right beside the fire and then proceeded to crawl on top of him. Jamie expected Levi to kiss him but he didn’t; instead, Levi just straddled Jamie’s lower abdomen and began to rotate his hips, grinding down, and Jamie felt the free runner’s erection against his own. 

Letting out a soft moan, Jamie arched into the touch and a devious smirk crossed Levi’s face, revealing very prominent dimples. Levi then played with the elastic of Jamie’s sweatpants with a teasing hand but, without realising what he was doing, Jamie stopped him. 

“No,” he said quietly. 

Levi halted and watched Jamie uncertainly. The younger boy closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths. He was getting ahead of himself, that’s what he was doing. He wasn’t sure...

Yet, why not? Now seemed like as good a time as any. Wondering if this was the right thing to do, he reached for one of Levi’s hands and brought it to his mouth. Jamie drew two of Levi’s fingers into his mouth and sucked, tasting a mixture of Earth and brass. Levi watched before he leaned down to replace his fingers with his mouth. 

The next thing Jamie knew, Levi was tugging down his sweatpants and when the semi-cool air brushed over Jamie’s cock, he shivered, a chill racing up and down his spine. Levi settled down between Jamie’s legs and the teen stared, his heart racing, as the free runner’s tongue played with the head of his erection. 

 _Jesus_ , he thought to himself, a wave of heat washing over him. And as a finger entered him, Levi distracted Jamie from the pain by almost completely deep throating his cock. Something sparked across the lower part of Jamie’s back along with another wave of heat. Shivering, he propped himself up on his elbows, breathing shallowly, and when Levi let Jamie’s cock slide out of his mouth, Jamie noticed the way it was coated with saliva, how it glinted in the firelight. 

Minutes later, he climaxed into Levi’s mouth and stammered out an apology, but Levi just licked his lips and grinned. He let his tongue travel up and down Jamie’s shaft before bestowing a kiss on the tip, and then he staggered to his feet. He helped Jamie up, too, assisted with putting on his pants because Jamie's hands were trembling. In fact, his whole body was trembling from the release and the adrenaline of the aftermath. Levi put his hands on Jamie’s hips and swayed with him, kissing him again, on the lips, and jawline, and neck. His tongue caressed Jamie's soft, burning skin. When their lips met again, Levi kissed him hard and deeply. For a long time, they stood there, underneath the blazing aurora, by the glow of the dying fire, kissing each other as though that night would be the last night they'd be alive. 

 Unbeknownst to them, they had an ethereal voyeur - dark, sapphire blue eyes watched from a branch overhead. And when he followed Levi into his tent that night (and several nights after), Jamie had a constant audience. Those blue eyes resurfaced in those moments of climax and he couldn't help but think about to whom they belonged. 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

_November_

Jamie’s first semester at Notre Dame was overwhelming only in the sense that he had to adapt to his new environment. It wasn’t hard, but there was a lot to get used to. He was asked out by a couple girls within the first month when he had attended this famous Harry Potter club. He also had to get used to the typical college pride part of the experience - you know, with Notre Dame being well-known for its football and the likes. He must’ve been invited to about seven different parties and he declined all but one. He only went to that one because his dorm mate, a German exchange student named Arlo, was going.  Arlo had a lot of friends and he introduced them all to Jamie so making friends was also not much of a big deal. 

But all of these smaller things compounded into one bigger thing and, at times, with schoolwork, learning how to get to classes, getting to know the professors, and the best places to go for late-night food, it all could be rather overwhelming. 

It was fun though. Meeting new people, seeing new places. Jamie had never been to Indiana before and he found it welcoming with his fellow eager freshmen and also the cool wintry chill. 

The best news yet, though, was that Jamie had finally finished his dissertation. A science professor at Notre Dame was keenly interested in reading it and even promised connections. It was one of the best eighteenth birthday gifts he could have asked for. And, as promised, Jamie did actually give Monty a signed copy. 

It was Thanksgiving break, which wasn’t much of a break for Jamie’s dorm mate, Arlo, but since Jamie’s classes had proved to be rather easy this first semester, he was definitely planning on taking advantage of the free time. He was home for the four-day weekend and so far he’d endured Sophie’s screaming music, her attack-dog - the Saint Bernard, which had taken to jumping on Jamie and licking all over his face, Monty telling him about a motorcycle accident he was in (he was fine, don’t worry), and his mother fretting over a few grey hairs. His father had moved out and the house felt oddly empty, with Jamie and Sophie having taken over the upstairs and his mother sleeping downstairs. 

Jamie had been sitting at his desk, absentmindedly watching weather patterns scroll across his computer screen, when he suddenly had an urge to talk to his sister. Frowning to himself, lost in thought, he left his bedroom and knocked on Sophie’s door. 

“Sophie!” he called but her music was too damn loud. He knocked harder. “ _SOPHIE!_ ” 

The door opened and there was his bratty blonde little sister. She gazed at him with bright green eyes, scratched her head and said, “What do you want, Jamie? I’m busy!”

“Oh, shut up. You’re always ‘busy’ these days,” he remarked, grinning. It was kinda true - Sophie had taken up a severe art passion, probably inspired by Pippa, and she spent most of free time talking to her friends on Skype while splashing paint on enormous canvases. At the moment, she was wearing ratty overalls, her hair was tied into a messy bun, and she was more paint splattered than her canvases. “I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s kinda important.”

Sophie pursed her lips but then moved aside to let him into her room. She turned off the music, said good-bye to her friends, and sat on the ruined carpet, (it was part of her zen phase), invited him to accompany her, and waited. 

Jamie glanced around her room. It really was a mess. Paint and paint cans everywhere. Brushes sprawled across the carpet. Only her bed seemed intact. “Well,” he began, feeling a little awkward, “I was wondering...well...I was wondering what you...if you remembered something that happened a while ago. The thing... with Jack Frost.”

“What, you kissing him?” Sophie asked. 

“No! No. Uh... “ _Shit_. He felt so inadequate. I mean, what if he brought up the incident and she just laughed at him? Oh who cares. Sophie was his sister. It wouldn’t matter, right? “No, I’m talking about the time Burgess experienced that blackout...you know, that really big one...I was like eight. And Jack was there?”

Sophie just shrugged. “Yeah, I remember the blackout. Kinda.”

Jamie peered at her. “Do you remember what happened? There were these....people... called Pitch and there was a guy named North. Um...one named Sandy and Bunny...?”

Sophie stared at him and Jamie thought maybe she didn’t entirely remember after all. “Why are you bringing this up now?” she said. 

“Well. You saw Jack. Jack... he’s not human, you know?”

Sophie laughed. “Oh yeah, trust me, any kid who moves like _that_ can _not_ be human.”

Jamie frowned. “You don’t remember? Any of it?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Gimme a second,” she said and she stood up, jumped over her head, and began rummaging through a chest of drawers in the corner. She pulled out an enormous leather-bound notebook and came over to Jamie and sat down again. When she opened it, Jamie saw loads of sketches and drawings - some were just colourful scribbles, hard to make out, others were full on sketches, detailed and shaded. The closer he looked, he saw that she had drawn all of them - Jack, Bunny, North, Sandy, Pitch; Jack was only a wintry blur and Pitch was just a couple of black shadows, but Bunnymund was definitely Bunnymund, down to his Easter egg markings and armbands. 

  “You remember,” Jamie whispered, turning page after page. Some of the drawings were dated - some Sophie had been no older than five or six. Others were more recently. There was one dated the previous year and it was a clear-cut sketch of Jack Frost. 

“I see them in my dreams,” Sophie said, a gentle smile on her face. “Sometimes, when I wake up, I can’t really see them clearly but... they always return... “

Jamie stared at the picture of Jack. Was his hair really that white? And his eyes that blue? He was surprised at the tightness in his gut and he realised he was _missing_ them, _all_ of them. He closed the sketchbook. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was too young, maybe?” Sophie said, taking back her sketchbook. “I know that when I was older, I wanted to. I thought about it. I asked Pippa and she told me not to talk to you about it because you were angry. I... never knew why you were angry and she never explained it. But I think I know now...” She gave him that sideways look she always gave him when she finally figured out something. “Are you still angry, Jamie?”

Jamie swallowed. _Was_ he? He didn’t feel it. He hadn’t seen Jack all year. He hadn’t even thought about him as much; he’d been too preoccupied with school and Canada and... but now that he was taking a moment for himself, and it certainly felt like the first moment all year, Jamie realised he missed Jack and missed him terribly. 

“I miss having fun with him,” Jamie said finally. “I don’t know if you remember but before Pitch was, like... vanquished, Sandman created all these awesome creatures and there were enormous dinosaurs and flying stingrays...”

“And butterflies,” Sophie said. 

“And the fireworks.”

They both sat there, reminiscing. Why hadn’t he ever talked with Sophie about this before? Why had he always been so hesitant? And why had the subject always made him depressed? Maybe he’d expected too much but after all - they were Guardians; they had busy lives and histories to create and meddle with. They were spirits, not humans. They lived in a different realm, had different understandings of how life was, how things worked. Jamie remembered looking at the toys he received for Christmas and searching for the manufacturing labels and seeing that many were made in China or Taiwan or Indonesia and wondering where North came into play. As he grew up, he had nightmares and fears and wondered if Pitch still lingered somewhere... and Jamie had caught his mother putting a quarter under his pillow. Yet his friends acted as though everything were real, even when the subject was consistently avoided. And he did get one of his neighbours asking his mother some strange questions about seeing Jamie sliding down one of the neighbourhood streets. That had to count for _something_. 

“He came back for you,” Sophie said, after a minute, bringing Jamie back to the present. 

“What?”

“Jack. He came back for you.” 

Jamie thought about that. He had figured that Jack just came around as he normally would, whatever constituted as “normal” or a winter spirit anyway. But Sophie was right: Jack did, purposefully, come into his bedroom and strike up a conversation. If it had been accidental, the incarnate would not have done that... right? 

“Now it’s time for you to get out,” Sophie said, smirking. 

“What!”

“Come _on_ , Jamie. I was listening to music and painting!”

“You little shit.” He stood up and headed towards the door. Sophie picked up a paintbrush and waved it threateningly at him. 

“But you love me.” She smiled sweetly, pulled back the brush, and let the bristles flick forward, spattering Jamie with cerulean-coloured paint. 

“Ahhh, hey! _Hey_!”

Sophie pushed him out of her room. “Watch it, big brother, and you’ll be covered in in a rainbow in seconds. Don’t doubt me; I learned from the _Easter Bunny.”_ And with that, she slammed the door and loud music was soon blaring from her room. 

 

The next day, Levi came by. He and Jamie had seen each other randomly since their time in Canada. Levi travelled a lot because of his environmental internships but also because of his free running. The moment he came over, he and Jamie scouted some paths that were ice-free, which could be used as possible obstacles for free running, and then the two of them geared up and set off, racing through Burgess and getting into all kinds of trouble. Levi provided a brilliant distraction but a distraction from what, Jamie still wasn’t sure. 

That night, after it became too cold to hold onto railings, when they collapsed wearily onto Jamie’s bed, Levi rested his head on Jamie’s thigh. 

“Oh, man,” said Jamie, staring at his ceiling. “ _That_ was some of the best fun I’ve had in...I can’t even tell ya.” 

Levi looked up and grinned. “We could have a little more, if you want.” He slid off the bed and onto the floor, perching on his knees. Jamie sat up and Levi rubbed Jamie’s thighs, running his hands up and down. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Jamie’s crotch, which caused the teen to squirm. 

Levi was relentless. He yanked down Jamie’s pants and boxers and when he swallowed Jamie’s cock, the teen let out a strangled gasp. His fingers were in Levi’s hair and his entire body was stiff with sexual tension. 

Unfortunately, the bliss didn’t last because there was a sudden WHOOSH! and the window to his bedroom flew open! Chilly air washed into the bedroom causing Jamie to scramble back and grab a blanket. A flurry of snow whisked into his room and frost crawled across the window panes and the walls. 

Shivering, Jamie stared for a second, jumped off the bed and then rushed to the window. He looked around the neighbourhood. The moon was high in the sky, partially covered with wintry clouds. Over a slight breeze, Jamie thought he heard a familiar chuckle. 

“Jack?” he called into the night. But there was no answer. The wind and the frost that had blown his window open had disappeared as quickly as they’d come. 

“Who’s Jack?” Levi asked, coming up beside him, wrapping an arm around Jamie’s waist. 

“Uh, huh?”

“Jack. You said Jack. Who’s that?”

Jamie avoided his gaze. “Oh. I dunno. Some... old... thing from my childhood.”

Levi raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because you talk about him in your sleep.”

With one last confused look outside, Jamie closed and latched the window and turned to Levi. “It’s nothing to worry about. I promise.” Levi looked uncertain so Jamie continued, “Sleep with me tonight?”

The freerunner fell asleep almost immediately but Jamie lay there, wide awake for a very long time. He turned on his side and raised a hand to caress Levi’s face and when he did so, he felt a surge of guilt. He knew now why Levi was a distraction: he was a distraction from thinking about Jack. 

 

  


December came quickly and as Jack had promised so long ago, it was one of the heaviest winters Burgess had experienced in a while. Mrs. Bennett had enlisted Jamie and his friends to help decorate the house. Actually, ‘help’ was kind of inaccurate - it was more like ‘decorate the house, honey,’ while she preoccupied herself with baking and wrapping presents and running errands. Pippa and Monty were in charge of lights, Monty teetering on a ladder as he placed them along the edge of the roof and Pippa standing on a step stool, nailing them around the window. Caleb and Sophie were stomping through the snow, setting up gnomes and plastic reindeer and building snowmen and the like. Jamie was on the roof with Levi and Claude, nailing lights around the chimney and adjusting the enormous Santa sleigh - which, by the way, looked little like North’s. Cecilia, AKA Cupcake, wasn’t home from school yet but she promised that when she arrived, she’d help out with the soup kitchens in Philly. 

Claude was in the middle of telling everyone about how he and Levi had actually eaten at the same KFC in California and how it gave them a special bond. “We’re KFC compadres,” he said, nodding at Levi. “Mi chicken es tu chicken.” And that was when Jack showed up in all of his wintry glory. 

“Jack!” yelled Pippa from down below. 

“Jack Frost!” Claude said, nearly falling off the roof in shock. 

“So it wasn’t a dream!” Caleb said. 

Levi glanced around. “Who’s Jack?”

“Oh, he’s just the spirit of winter,” Monty answered, adjusting the lights, furrowing his brows, and then yanking them down again. 

“Heya, kiddos,” Jack said, swooping down on them like an overly large snowflake. He landed lightly beside Monty. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not kids anymore,” Monty pointed out. Jack laughed. 

“Ha! Even the oldest human is a kid compared to me!” He then flew down towards Sophie and Caleb, scooped up balls of feathery snow and began to throw them through the air. 

“No way are you winning this one, Jack Frost!” yelled Caleb and he began building his own snowy artillery. But Jack had already changed tactics and found someone else to tease. Jamie watched, bemused, as the prince of winter danced along the gutters, pointing out invisible mistakes in Monty’s lighting skills. 

“It’s crooked over here.”

Monty groaned, strutted down the ladder, moved the ladder to where Jack was pointed and climbed back up to adjust the lights. 

“Oooh, now it’s crooked over _here_.”

Monty adjusted the lights again. 

“And this section here is dangling.”

“Oh, my God, shut UP, Jack!”

Levi leaped down the side of the roof to look at what Monty was doing. “Can _you_ tell me who Jack is?”

Monty leaned in close to the free runner. “You never heard of Jack Frost?”

“What, the snowman?”

“Hey!” Jack said. “Who’re you callin’ a snowman?”

“No, the personification of winter, duh.” 

Levi frowned, opened his mouth to talk but Caleb was climbing up a ladder beside Monty. “Hey, does anyone have a hammer? Sophie won’t give hers up. She’s pretending she’s Thor.” Jamie slid Caleb a hammer. Most of them had been working in short sleeves since the labour was strenuous but with Jack’s presence, the air was suddenly quite a few degrees colder, so Jamie found himself putting his sweatshirt back on and even wrapping his scarf back around his neck. 

“It’s not a joke, Levi,” Jamie said, balancing on the ridge of the rooftop. He shrugged. “I can prove it to you.”

“Whoa, wait a minute--” Jack held up a hand. “Prove what? How are you going to--”

“YAHHHHHHHH!” Jamie screamed and went stumbling down the rooftop, knocking off some shingles on accident and then he jumped out into the air. 

“Whoa!” The incarnate yelled, diving in to catch the falling teen. They swooped down so that Jamie’s leg brushed the uppermost layer of snow and then they were high in the air again, Jamie’s arms wrapped around Jack’s neck. Jamie’s heart was racing, partially from the adrenaline of doing something so daring, even for someone who’d been practising free running, and partially from something else. Jack held him tightly and his embrace was chilly and crisp but comfortable and welcoming. The cold was, after all, something Jamie had fallen in love with at an early age. 

“What were you playin’ at?” Jack said, grinning. 

“I knew you’d catch me.” Jamie grinned back and then turned to look at Levi. “So? Do you see him now?” At the moment, he probably looked as though he were floating in mid-air. He remembered doing this to Pippa oh so long ago. Levi stared for a moment. “Come on, you gotta _believe_.”

“In a winter spirit?” Levi said. 

“Oh please,” snorted Monty. “That’s like... from the Department of No Big Deal. You shoulda seen Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.”

“Don’t forget the Tooth Fairy!” called Caleb from below. 

“And Sandman!” added Pippa. 

Levi looked at Jamie and Monty and back at Jamie as though he were trying to decide if it was a joke or not. But Jamie was there, floating in mid-air beside him. That was when Jack put a hand out, blew some cold air into a snow ball and threw it at Levi. It hit him right in the shoulder but a sparkly flurry touched his face and Levi gasped. 

“Holy--who--” Levi stumbled backwards and nearly tripped over the ridge of the roof. 

Jack set Jamie down onto the roof and then bowed in a flamboyant manner. “I’m Jack Frost, the ubiquitous Prince of Winter. _Not_ at your service.” Monty snickered. Levi was too busy staring to be offended. 

“What the fuck-- _who_ the fuck--”

“Levi--”

“Nuh-uh!” The freerunner looked around at everyone as though waiting for someone to jump out and go, “ _Surprise!”_ but it never came. All eyes were on him, just watching him. “You all saw that, right? You all _see_ that? A kid just--just appeared from nowhere and--”

“I’m not a kid,” Jack said haughtily. 

“Yeah--” Levi said, completely distracted. “I just--I mean--what--”

Jamie walked up to Levi and took his hand. “Levi! Chill out!”

The freerunner looked at him, then at Jack, then back to Jamie. “Stuff like this just doesn’t happen,” he said, sounding hopeless. “It just...” 

Jamie pulled Levi towards him. “This is important to me,” he said quietly. His eyes searched Levi’s. “Jack is a big part of my life. He’s a challenge to the entire science community. He’s proof that something bigger than us exists. Something that... well.” Jamie sighed and pressed his forehead into the freerunner’s shoulder. “It’s not exactly something we all expected, but he’s there. They’re all there. Levi, magic _is real_.”

The freerunner put a hand under Jamie’s chin and lifted it. “It’s a lot to take in.” Levi's voice was hoarse. 

Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I can’t even imagine. I grew up knowing and it was difficult for _me_. It was difficult...for all of us.”

“It’s going to take me some time.” He was so hesitant, uncertain. Jamie could see the confusion tinged with fear written all across his face. Of course, Levi wasn’t literally _afraid_ of Jack, but people are naturally uneasy around things they don’t understand. Jamie, all though he couldn’t empathise, could definitely understand, on a basic level, what Levi was going through. It was like a Christian who had literally met God, or met Jesus personally, _in person_ , had spoken to him and everything. It would be like taking that Christian, who _knew_ the world was only six thousand years old because they had _witnessed_ it and placing them in a classroom where the teacher was explaining the theory of evolution or the big bang. It was like taking an atheist and introducing them to God in a literal sense. Jamie knew religious and non-religious folks alike. And many of them claimed to “know” God existed or didn’t exist. But Jamie had a good idea that if God literally _did_ show up, in whatever form, and proved He existed, it would surprise even the most devout of Christians. And it would baffle the most adamant of atheists. Jack Frost simply shouldn’t exist. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy should _not_ exist. Sandman didn’t create dreams, the fears and hopes and desires of humankind combined with brain activity did. If Santa created all the toys, why were there people in Southeast Asia being paid crap wages and forced to work long hours to make a bunch of plastic goods that were later sent to distribution centers and then delivered to various toy stores around the world? Jamie had been wondering all of these things for years. These Guardians were supposed to be abstract ideas, representations of things. They weren’t supposed to be _alive_ , they weren’t supposed to be able to eat and drink, and talk, and think, and create. But they were. 

It had been hard, even for Jamie, to fully embrace their existences as he grew up. But he knew what he had seen. He knew what he had felt. He had proof. There was no way to deny any of it. 

So, if it had been that bad for Jamie, and Pippa, and Monty, the twins, Cecilia, and Sophie... he could hardly imagine what it was like for Levi, to see some kid literally appear out of thin-air like some magic trick and then be told that this kid was a season, _an entire season_ filled with billions of years of history, in human form. 

Jamie had decided, a long time ago, that he, himself, had not the brain capacity to make it all fit. That it would take some growth or celestial and intradimensional enlightenment to make sense of things. So, for the time being, he knew Jack was real. They all were real and he had no choice but to just accept it. 

Jamie placed a brief kiss upon Levi’s lips. “I promise I’ll explain everything. Well, everything I _can_ explain.” He smiled. 

They were silent for a moment. Pippa, Sophie, and Caleb had gone back to decorating the lawn. Claude was sitting on top of the chimney and Monty was listening to Jamie’s conversation.

“So...” Levi began again, a tad awkwardly, “....is this the infamous Jack you were talking about?”

Jamie moved away and nodded. 

“The one who--”

“Yes, that one,” Jamie interrupted, feeling heat rise up the back of his neck. Jack stared at the both of them and that was when Jamie made an excuse that they should all get back to work or they’d be outside past dark. Jack was his usual unhelpful self and it really was almost sundown by the time they finished. 

After dinner, with Levi conked out on the couch, Jamie went up to his room, stripped down to his boxers and lay there on his bed thinking about a multitude of things. He closed and let his consciousness travel down its stream. And he knew, though there was no chill, no sound, no introduction, that Jack was nearby. He was nearly asleep when he felt Jack lay down beside him.

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda feel bad for Levi...  
> I also want to say that this whole story (minus two sections) is supposed to be through Jamie's eyes, which is why we don't really see much of Jack's thought process. Was kind of inspired by George R.R. Martin's talent with writing unreliable narrators. :-)


	8. Chapter 8

_April..._

_“_ Catch me, if you can!” Jamie called breathlessly as he swung himself up a ladder that rattled and shook beneath him, dashed across a gravelly roof, vaulted over a low, cement wall, saw a gap between this building and the next and flew across it. Laughing gaily the spirit of winter hovered beside him, watching as Jamie raced across rooftops. The wind whistled in Jamie’s ears as he jumped up the side of a parking garage. Chicago was definitely called the windy city for a reason and when his feet finally touched solid ground, Jamie cantered down North Madison towards Millenium Park; the weather, though it had warmed up, still caused chills to travel up and down Jamie’s spine and reddened his ears. 

It was never safe to freerun on unfamiliar routes and in a city where the cops were typically nice yet still didn’t seem to appreciate teenagers scurrying up the sides of buildings and using expensive sculptures as paths to get to the even more interesting nooks and crannies of the city. Jamie had already avoided cops on LaSalle by allowing Jack to carry him out of reach. It had been a risk but glancing back at the cops’ startled faces had been incredibly worthwhile. 

Jamie purposely turned onto Jackson Drive and slowed his sprinting to a brisk jog. He passed by several beautiful parks, one holding a spring concert. The music reached his ears as he passed. Heart racing, he slowed even more to a walk as he came up the ever congested Lake Shore Drive. Crossing Lake Shore drive seemed to take forever. Jack danced over traffic, Jamie mouthing obscenities after him. 

He’d driven out late the previous night to meet Levi for dinner and a fun night but the freerunner had cancelled almost at the last minute, just as Jamie was entering the city. Apologetic, Levi booked a hotel room for Jamie so that the teen could spend the night, at least, and drive back the following day. Jamie realised, with a strangely distant and disheartening feeling in his stomach, that he not only didn’t really care that Levi had flaked, but that he was a bit relieved. He’d sat in the hotel room, a nice one, too, just down the street from the Willis Tower, for an hour, trying to organise his thoughts, but only seemed to get white static in his brain whenever he came close to succeeding. 

Jamie had planned on just going to bed and leaving in the morning but Jack showed up hours later. Pippa sent him sixteen annoyed text messages informing Jamie that Jack had relentlessly pestered her until she told him where Jamie was staying. Jack’s company changed everything and they spent all of Friday night walking downtown, eating snowcones and popsicles and ice cream. Jamie dressed for a small freerunning escapade and the two of them climbed sculptures and played pranks on the city folks until Jack lifted Jamie all the way to the top of the Willis Tower. It had been chilly up there and the wind whipped through Jamie’s clothes, but he endured a good thirty minutes before he decided he wanted to go back to being on the ground level. 

Back at the hotel, Jamie stood on the balcony, Jack perched on the railing, and looked out over the city. When Sandman came through, both of them interrupted the dream streams and watched as beautiful creatures and people made of dream sand danced around them - not just dinosaurs and unicorns, dolphins and stingrays, but whales and corals reefs, castles and their architects, spaceships and stars and supernovae, gardens and fish ponds, igloos and snowball fights (much to Jack’s delight) and every other sort of wonder to ever exist in the world. The sand glittered and sparkled with joy as it disappeared through walls and windows and awoke the subconsciouses of millions of sleeping people. 

Jamie had slept in late, his own dreams filled with strange symbols, leaves falling off trees, and crisp winds, and when he woke up, he decided to go for a run, which rapidly turned into parkour and that was when he began to race Jack. After a couple hours of intense exercise and with his heart beating fast against his ribs, breathing heavily, and feeling hotter than a dying sun, Jamie finally slowed to a walk, attempting to catch his breath. Sweat caused his clothes to cling to his skin. Jack glided beside him.

“We could go across the harbor,” Jack suggested, a hint of mischievousness in his voice. He gave Jamie a sidelong glance. 

“You know how many boats are out there?” Jamie asked, gazing out across the water. In the distance, he could just barely make out the end of the pier, right at the entrance to Monroe Harbor, with its little buoy perched upon the edge of the dock. The setting sun cast a gloriously yellowy-orange haze over the water, swathing the boats in cloaks of golds and ambers, stretching their shadows over the surface of Lake Michigan. 

“No idea, kiddo,” Jack answered. “Who cares?” The corners of his lips twitched. His white hair glowed with the colourful palette of the sunset. And without waiting for an answer, Jack zipped out onto the bay, the water freezing into a glinting frosty road beneath him.

“Jack!” Jamie called but the incarnate was gone. “Shit.”

He was going to find a bench to sit down on but already Jack was heading on back, and dragging behind him was a hunter green raft. “Get in!” he said. Jamie stared at the raft. 

“What? No. _No_.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “You didn’t mind a decade ago.”

“I was _eight_ \--”

“Get in. You’ll be safe.” Jack walked right up to him, the raft making a gravelly sound as it was dragged over the icy road he made and surveyed Jamie’s face. “I promise.”

Jamie stared back and damn, he was hesitant but he drew in a deep breath, tried to muster the naive courage he had had as a child, and finally said, “All right. But if you get me killed, I swear to whatever God lives upstairs that I will haunt you until the end of time.” 

Jack winced, grinning sheepishly. “You’re on.”

Jamie gave him a sardonic look before climbing into the raft. He grabbed hold of the handles, grimaced inwardly and said, “I’m...ready.”

Then Jack took off!

Out into the harbor they went, zipping past boats and into the darkening sky! Jamie yelled in surprise, the wind whipping his hair, chilling his skin, but Jack showed no sign of relenting and he moved up, up, and up, higher and faster. Out of the corner of his eye, Jamie could see the frosty road melt into a light flurry of snow as they zoomed along it. His heart was in his throat, his arms had turned to gooseflesh, the sweat had become cold along his skin and he was so sure -- _so sure_ \-- that Jack was going to drop him from this great height right into the water--it would be such a Jack thing to do and dear God, he was going to die and if he went any higher, he was positive he’d see the curvature of the Earth and--

Then Jack was skidding downward on an icy slide and holy hell, this beat any roller coaster in the world and Jamie was flying down it, a scream lodged in the back of his throat--

The water rushed up at them and then the slide veered up and cut off suddenly so that Jamie flew out of his raft and--

\--was caught by Jack, who wrapped a strong, wiry arm around Jamie’s waist and pulled him up through the air right before he was about to hit the water. He would’ve been dead, Jamie barely had time to speculate, when they slowed suddenly and simply floated, lighter than feathers, to the end of the dock, right near that tiny buoy - a buoy that was no longer very tiny. The hairs on Jamie’s arms and neck felt so weird, like they’d been brushed back, as though he’d just skydived. Which, he realised, he sorta had. 

Jamie’s legs were trembling and he barely managed to stand his ground. Jack peered at him. 

“Are you okay, kiddo?”

Jamie nodded. When he spoke, he was relieved to hear that his voice sounded confident. “Yeah, of course.”

“Was that fun?”

“You could call it that.”

Jack was either oblivious or simply ignored the sarcastic edge to Jamie’s voice because he nodded and turned away. Jamie stared after him but then decided he needed to settle down, so he sat cross-legged right at the end of the dock. The sun had nearly disappeared and the sky had turned a beautiful, velvety violet-black. The lights from the boats in the harbor mingled with those from the city. Jamie gazed at them for a while, feeling a tad lonely but also strangely at peace. He was away from the hustle and bustle of the city nightlife, out in the bay, listening to the sounds of the water lapping at the dock and the occasional fish jumping out of the water to catch a bug, or distant horn of a boat. He finally managed to get his heart rate back down to a more normal pace when Jack came and sat beside him and he leaned, in an anti-defying gravity sort of way, against his staff. The air around Jamie must’ve dropped a few degrees because the water below Jack’s feet turned to ice yet Jamie felt relaxed and comfortable. It was as though winter was leaving less and less of a physical mark on him. 

They sat in silence for a while and it wasn’t the first time that Jamie wished he could see inside Jack’s head. What was the Prince of Winter currently thinking about? Did his thoughts revolve purely around snow and ice or did he think about life? What did Jack think about Levi or, hell, Jamie? What did he desire? It could be incredibly frustrating at times. The incarnate never spoke of such things and Jamie wasn’t sure it was because Jack was the personification of winter or because Jack simply didn’t care to voice his thoughts. 

“I had a dream about Pitch last night,” Jamie said, breaking through the silence. It was a lie, of course, but he wanted to try something. Jack looked at him, taken aback. 

“Why would you dream about _him_?” he asked. 

Jamie shrugged. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about... about that night, when I was little.” He smiled to himself. “What an exciting night. I can’t even believe I...I _did_ something like that. And--and... Pitch disappeared so quickly. It all seemed to happen so fast, too fast, and... sometimes, I wish I could replay it, you know? Experience something like that again.”

Jack reflected Jamie’s smile. “It was a lot of fun towards the end there,” he said, his smile broadening into a crooked grin. 

“I thought you’d come back for us,” Jamie added, his own smile fading. “I thought you’d come back for _me_. I thought I meant something.”

Jack looked down at the water. “You did. You... _do_...”

Jamie turned to face the incarnate. He put a hand on Jack’s thigh. “Jack, darkness doesn’t go away. Nightmares don’t go away. Fear exists in every one of us. How can you want to take that away?”

Jack’s eyebrows furrowed. “What are you saying? That you _want_ fear to exist? That nightmares are--are just-- _okay_?”

He was getting somewhere. “I told you I believed in Pitch but that I just wasn’t afraid of him. Remember? We need all those things. We need fear and darkness otherwise we can’t become brave, we--we--” The pain in his shoulder blade returned much to his dismay; it twinged like a warning. “Without darkness, we can’t appreciate the light. We can’t overcome the--the darkness that exists in every one of us--”

Jack jumped to his feet, grabbed his staff, and pointed it at Jamie so quickly that Jamie drew back, alarmed. “Pitch isn’t just fear and darkness!” he said, his voice rising. “He’s the evil that wants to snuff out the good! He’s what you see on your television and in the hearts of your criminals! He’s what kills and destroys and--”

“Oh, come _on_!” Jamie snapped, slowly getting to his feet, eyes on the staff. “There has to be somebody who represents that who isn’t Pitch! The boogeyman isn’t supposed to be evil! Not _really_! He’s the king of nightmares. He’s darkness and fear and--”

Jack was shaking his head and the temperature around them was dropping even more. Jamie felt a chill race up his spine. “I know human legends,” he said. “I’ve read things and I see things and I know what you think he is but you’re wrong! Every version is wrong! We are the truth! _We_ know! And--and--”

It was so surreal, seeing Jack like this, flustered, purple splotches on his cheeks. 

“Then tell me what he is!” Jamie roared. “Tell me what it all means! Because I don’t know!”

Jack stared at him, his blue eyes so dark, it was hard to pick out their bluish hues. “He’s the one who tells you to steal. To murder. To destroy. He’s the one who encourages greed and torture and abuse. He’s...he’s every mental illness. He’s every injury. Every weakness. He’s the sole function of a violent race.”

“You have a life.” Jamie was calmer now, but he was still cautious. “You remember. You were human. You said that everyone was someone before they became a Guardian. Or--or--a spirit-- You said--- Pitch must be like that--”

“He is,” Jack admitted solemnly. “But I don’t think he remembers. I don’t know his story and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. It’s not my story to tell.”

Jamie didn't know what to say to that. He was curious, but at the same time... a shadow passed over him. A strange loss of time, like he, Jamie, wasn't really  _there_. The feeling had come before, but not in such a wave. It was an absurd disconnect from reality and it came whenever he hung out with Jack or whenever he thought about the Guardians and their duties to children across the globe. 

“I’m scared, Jack. I’m scared now.”

The Prince of Winter seemed uncertain. He took a wary step forward. “Scared? Or what?”

“I’m scared of everything. I’m growing up, Jack. I’m afraid of failure and defeat. I’m... I’m afraid for my sister and my parents and losing my friends. I’m afraid of losing faith in you and the other Guardians.” Jack opened his mouth but Jamie pointed a finger at him. “I’m afraid of falling and falling and falling. And no-- _no_ \--don’t say you understand--”

“I wasn’t going to say that.” Jack’s eyes were bright again. “I was just going to say that you don’t need to be afraid of falling. Because...because I’ll be there to catch you.”

 

 

Spring break rolled around and Jamie was back in Burgess. Spring, however, wasn’t entirely back yet and there were splotches of snow and stubborn patches of ice scattered all around town. Shawn Bennett was renting an apartment over on Main and Sophie and Jamie were spending the night there. The flat was a mess; boxes were pilled up in some corners, the lights gave off a bright yellow hue, and there were take-out boxes strewn across the fold-up tables in the living room. The upside to the apartment was that it was in the process of being refurbished and there was this nice little half-solarium that had huge bay windows overlooking the small town. Mr. Bennett had set up a small table there and at the moment, he and Jamie were eating Chinese. Sophie was stretched out lavishly on the sofa, watching television. Every so often, she’d groan, get up, fix the antennae, and go back to lay down on the couch. 

“It still feels weird not having you around,” Jamie said, taking a bite of an eggroll. “Our house is almost too big now.” Beside the table, propped against the walls, were all of Mr. Bennett’s guitars, from Gibsons to Fenders to 12-strings and acoustics. Shawn used to be in a band with his friends a long time ago. Jamie’s mother, Marion, was the step-sister of one of those friends and she came along to watch the boys play in a club one night... and, apparently, that’s how everything started. Nineteen years ago. 

“You’ll get used to it, sport,” Mr. Bennett said, smiling. “I hear you’ve been doing well with college.”

“Yeah... I have a presentation coming up in May about global warming. And then I was invited to a research facility in Alaska this summer. My dissertation is published and will be placed in the National Archives.”

Mr. Bennett whistled. “How the hell did you turn out so smart?” he mused. “My own boy! Must be your mother’s genes.” He grinned. Jamie wanted to say that science came as easily to him as breathing but he was too busy blushing from the compliments. “So, have you met a special lady yet?”

Jamie frowned, poking at his rice with chopsticks. He’d found Levi, and he supposed that one fling with that girl at the party... but he didn’t think either of those counted. That familiar surge of guilt washed through him again at the thought of Levi. The freerunner, who had always been very prompt with his calls and text messages and visits, seemed more and more distant. They hadn’t spoken at all the last week and Jamie considered calling him to ask what was up. But at the same time, he felt more comfortable letting them drift apart. His mind was preoccupied with someone else. _A special lady? How about a special season? Yeah, that’s right, Dad, I’m more interested in someone who is three hundred years old and can fly. No, you can’t see him because he’s invisible to everyone but me._  

“No,” Jamie said, forcing a half-hearted smile. “No special lady yet. I’ve been too busy with school.” Mr. Bennett nodded like he understood and later, he got out an acoustic guitar, and the three of them sang an old favourite song of theirs called “Chuck Al-Hashib.”

When Jamie was lying awake in the spare bedroom (which was really an office), he could hear Sophie singing at the top of her lungs, “Nobody cared when Bob died! Nobody cared or tried to save him! Hey, look away! Pretend like Bob was never there!”

Jamie snorted in amusement, rolled his eyes, and promptly fell asleep. 

 

 

For the next few days, Jamie hung around Caleb and then Monty and Pippa arrived back in town, having just begun their spring breaks. Caleb was telling them all of his adventures through Europe and how he was thinking of moving to Scotland to start a wine business. It sounded crazy, Jamie thought, but also really cool. 

“If I ever visit you in Scotland, I want free wine,” Jamie said. 

“Hell yeah, man!”

That night, Jamie lay in bed underneath the stars and galaxies radiating from his planetarium projector, rubbing a thumb over the old pocket watch Old Man Drew and his granddaughter had given him. He clicked open the face of the watch and stared at the little leaves moving in the thin layer of crystal. The battery had died a while ago and Jamie was going to replace it but never got around to it. He saw the little button to open the watch, so he pressed it, but when he did, a crumpled piece of paper fell onto his chest. Jamie struggled to sit up and he grabbed the paper, unfolded it carefully, and held it under the flashlight on his phone. He could barely make out the cursive script; it was some sort of poem about the seasons. 

 

There were some words that Jamie simply could not figure out so he gave up on that but after twenty minutes or so, he managed to piece together enough of the poem to understand it. “‘And that beneath the Autumn shroud... awaits the future year,’” Jamie recited. “Hm...” He stared at the poem a little longer before folding it back up and placing it inside the watch. Jamie settled back onto his bed, staring at this ceiling, wondering who put the poem in the watch, what it meant, what it was for. 

That familiar soft crackling sound as frost crawled up Jamie’s window lattice encouraged his heart to beat faster. Jack was there, gazing at him through the misty layer of ice before he pushed open the window and entered the room. He hopped onto the bed and settled down beside Jamie. 

“Are we going to have any more serious discussions tonight?” he asked and Jamie didn’t even have to look at him to know that the incarnate was smirking. 

“No, I’m tired of being serious,” Jamie answered, laughing a little. He felt high, as though he had just lit up, as though he’d been at a rave, as though he’d taken ecstasy. His senses were on the highest alert; everything was clear as crystal, like he’d taken an NZT pill. Something big, something soul consuming, raged inside him and this little voice whispered in the back of his mind: _Now or never_. Could he? _Should_ he? Through his bedroom window, the moon seemed to shine brighter than it had ever done so before - it was larger than a harvest moon, and brighter than the sun.

This was the moment. It _had_ to be the moment. 

Jamie took in a silent deep breath and turned on his side to look at Jack. Jack turned to him and smiled but upon seeing the look on Jamie’s face, the incarnate’s smile slipped off his face and melted into something unreadable. He, too, turned on his side. With his heart threatening to leap out of his chest, Jamie reached a hand out and let his finger’s caress Jack’s cheek. The Prince of Winter’s skin was cool, like stepping into the pool before your body grew used to water, but not cold. Jack never took his eyes off Jamie’s as Jamie’s fingers lightly touched the incarnate’s skin, travelling ever so lightly over the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows, his temples and down his cheek to his lips. 

Jamie inched over, his face so close to Jack’s, so close that all he had to do was...

He couldn't do it. He shouldn't. Levi had been easy; Levi had initiated. Levi had been _human_. Was he willing to lose his immortal friend? Jamie drew in a deep breath and, with one last mindless, berating thought, he sat up. Jack was watching him still with that frustratingly unreadable expression, and, without hesitating, Jamie lifted himself up and straddled Jack’s lower abdomen, much in the same way Levi had done the previous summer. 

The two boys gazed at each other, one dark and impassive, the other full of light and life and obvious uncertainty. Winter and its companion. 

Finding it difficult to breath evenly, Jamie clutched Jack’s sweatshirt, his hands growing wet and cold from the frost as it melted in his grip. Then he was pushing it up the incarnate’s torso and Jack pulled it over his head, tossing it to the side where it fell to the floor with a wet thump.

Jamie’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of Jack’s pale figure below him, rippling with wiry muscle, showing off jagged, jutting hip bones, prominent collarbones. Every part of him was defined, strong, solid, every muscle designed to move with astonishing precision. His arms were taut with strength and Jamie could see why it had been so easy, so effortless, for Jack to carry him through the air. This was the figure of winter. This was the human vessel that encompassed all of Earth’s ice ages, its blizzards, its ice and snow and frost. This, _this body_ , could level entire forests with heavy snows, freeze parts of the ocean, storm hail down upon entire civilizations... 

Jamie picked up one of Jack’s hands and put it to his lips. There was a tenderness in Jack, too - light snow flurries and snowflakes, snow angels and snowmen, igloos, and ice skating. And his skin shone with a wintry sheen in the moonlight that streamed into Jamie’s bedroom. Or maybe it was something more. 

This is what Winter really was. This person lying beneath him. This strange maelstrom of magic and science, immortality and inevitability. 

And Jamie had never felt so _alive_. 

Jack took the hand Jamie was holding and pushed at the teen’s NASA t-shirt and it, too, was discarded. Then Jack sat up, placed his hand behind Jamie’s neck, sending the iciest of chills down Jamie’s back, and shoved him off and to the side. Startled, Jamie tried to right himself but Jack was shoving him down on the bed, and one of the incarnate’s legs was nudging between Jamie’s, and then Jack was on top of him, his hands roving all over Jamie’s bare torso, the cool of his touch clashing with the heat of Jamie’s flesh. 

The next thing the teen knew was that his mouth soon felt like the peak of Everest. Jack had pushed his tongue between Jamie’s lips and hot and cold clashed yet again. Every time it did, a thrilling sensation rippled through Jamie’s body, and he felt he was becoming more and more aroused. The cold swept like a feral wind down his throat and into his core and spread out until each part of him was electric with the memories of every snowflake. As Jack kissed him harder, tongues clashing, biting lips, Jamie saw glimpses of Jack’s life, the way Jack saw it, and that was when he had to stop and taking a moment to catch his breath. All around them, the stars from the planetarium projector glowed brighter and brighter and the moon shone like a white dwarf star. 

Jack didn’t wait for permission, however, as he hastily began to yank Jamie’s boxers down his legs. Jamie’s erection sprang free and that cool-but-not-cold feeling overwhelmed him again. Jack was undoing his own pants, unwrapping the bindings around his calves, sliding his pants off and onto the floor. Like the sweatshirt, a small water stain spread underneath the pants as they, having lost the connection to their owner, began to melt. Jack crawled between Jamie’s legs but the teen put a hand to Jamie’s chest. 

“No,” he said.

The Prince of Winter gazed him still with that equivocal expression. It could have been a waiting stare, or a frustrated stare, or a lustful stare, Jamie couldn’t tell. 

“No,” Jamie repeated. “I...I want to look.”

In a motion more fluid than a ballerina’s and more silent than space, Jack was on his feet, completely naked and skin glinting in the moonlight, upon Jamie’s bed, leaning back against his staff. Jamie moved forward onto his knees before Jack and, placing his hands lightly on Jack’s hips, he leaned forward and kissed right below the incarnate’s navel. And lower still, until his lips found a soft nest of white pubic hair. Jamie held Jack’s cock gently in one hand and traced the vein with a fingertip from the other. He kissed along the shaft, breathing deeply, taking in that chilled wintry smell. He massaged the head with his thumb. Feeling an intensely painful stirring between his own legs, Jamie leaned in and licked the very tip. 

It was almost too much. 

It nearly _became_ too much when Jack entwined his fingers in Jamie’s hair, encouraging him. Feeling more exhilarated than he had ever in his entire life, Jamie took the head of Jack’s cock between his lips. There was nothing ordinary about it either, not like when Jamie had done this a million times to Levi. Levi had been familiar and average, even boring in comparison. The freerunner smelled of everything human, everything Jamie knew. But Jack, _Jack_ was a completely different story. He wasn’t just cold, his taste wasn’t just reminiscent of icicles and frost and a million winters. It was like Jamie had ascended from human to spirit, from mortal to immortal. Like he was finally making the journey into Jack’s realm and as he took Jack’s cock deeper into his mouth, down his throat, every single one of his nerves tingled with a sense of life he couldn’t even adequately explain. This, he assumed, was just another part of the magic versus science that he still couldn’t wrap his mind around. 

When Jack let out a groan, it was one of the most surprising and sensual things to be heard. “Jamie, Jamie, _please_ ,” he begged, sounding less like the Guardian of Fun, and more like the winter spirit of old. “ _Please...”_

Jamie took Jack’s cock as deep as he could, let it slide out a little, and then took it back down. He wanted to taste the incarnate, he wanted to feel what it was like--

But Jack had other ideas. 

The incarnate backed away and dropped to his knees as well and he kissed Jamie hard again, hands pulling on Jamie’s hair. “Been wanting to do that a while,” Jack murmured between kisses and for a moment, he looked human. 

“Why didn’t you?” Jamie said, leaning back onto the bed. He licked his lips, relishing the taste. 

“I forget things.”

“Such as what it’s like to...like someone.”

Jack didn’t respond. But it began to snow in Jamie’s room - just a flurry where the snowflakes melted before they touched any surface. Jack moved his hands around one of the snowflakes and it grew larger and larger so that each facet of the crystalline shape could be seen clearly by the naked eye. The snowflake hovered between the two of them and then Jack blew upon it and it exploded into a million little crystals that reflected rainbows amidst the stars decorating the room. One of the crystals shot across the ceiling like a comet. While Jamie was distracted by the snowy shapes flitting along his walls, Jack stroked the teen’s collarbones, traced a wavy path down his sternum and then he pushed Jamie flat on the bed. 

“What are you--” Jamie asked as Jack lay down on his stomach and lifted the teen’s hips up, angling his legs back. From between Jamie’s legs, Jack just grinned. 

“Don’t worry; it’ll be fun.”

Jamie clutched his ankles and watched as Jack’s mouth engulfed his balls. The bliss raced through him; there this was this bubble of excitement inside him, a sort of “holy-shit-I’m-having-sex-with-Jack-Frost” type bubble; not an overly zealous fan type of bubble, but this enormous wave of heat that soared through him, unlike the ones he had felt initially with Levi, that made him feel all giddy and light-headed. As Jack’s tongue found his hole and Jamie squirmed, gasped, and moaned, there was also something tight in Jamie’s chest - an almost alien tension like a hand was clutching his heart so strongly, it was hard to breathe, and when he _could_ breathe, his exhalations were misty, in spite of that hot-cold sheen that cloaked his sweaty skin. 

Jack pushed his tongue inside of Jamie and Jesus Christ, Jamie couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. He was trembling from the sweet chill that swept through him and the glowing stars on his walls and ceiling were just mere blurs of light. The cool sensation spread up over his ass, over his hip bones, and up his torso - the thinnest coat of frost, which melted seconds after touching Jamie’s skin. There was a cool sensation prodding his prostrate and it was sending him over the edge. Jack sucked hard on that puckered ring of muscle before moving up and nibbling ever so lightly along the perineum. His tongue created a path up the base of Jamie's shaft and to the tip, where he played with the underside of the head. Jamie felt sweat bead up on his forehead and he wanted to come so badly--

Jack’s lips, wrapped around Jamie’s cock now, elicited a gasp from Jamie. The knuckles of one hand were white while he clutched the bedsheets, the other was resting snugly in Jack’s hair. The cool of Jack’s mouth threatened to take him to other worlds - worlds of sparkling, frozen tundra, dunes of glittering snow, glassy lakes, star clusters, and nebulae and comets shooting across the sky. _Is this what he sees_? Jamie thought desperately, the heat swelling underneath the chill that raced over his body, as the head of his cock repeatedly struck the back of Jack's throat.

He was so not ready, mentally and emotionally, for when Jack positioned himself at Jamie’s entrance and, with a long, deeply questioning look, a slight nod from Jamie, Jack inched himself slowly inside the teen. When Jamie’s body opened up to the Prince of Winter, so did his mind - and the combination of what he felt and what he _saw_ was simply too surreal to adequately describe. 

Jack leaned over and down and fervently attacked Jamie’s lips with his own. As they kissed, the chorus from Alter Bridge’s “Ties that Bind” echoed through the room; Jamie’s mobile phone lit up and started vibrating. Jamie pulled back, closing his eyes. 

“Fuck,” he breathed out through his teeth. Jack kissed his jawline and his neck, each touch of his lips leaving behind a beautiful trail of frost. “That’s Levi.” Jack’s eyes found Jamie’s and the teen just shook his head. “I’m not answering it.” He should have felt guilty. He really should have, but he didn’t. He was too turned on, too eager to feel more of Jack and everything about him. The incarnate glanced at the phone; it finally became silent and Jack regarded it suspiciously before turning back to Jamie and thrusting into him in a particularly rough manner. 

Jamie gasped loudly, nearly crying out, but it had felt good and his cry was stifled by Jack’s desperate kiss. Jamie’s nails raked up and down the incarnate’s back and he drew away from Jack to kiss his neck, bite the chilled skin, drawing blood. Every mark he made, however, healed immediately but the blood remained behind for Jamie to lick up. 

Every thrust took Jamie further and further away from reality. He was leaving his bedroom. All around him, he felt soft snow that gleamed with reds and purples and pinks of a most magnificent aurora. Each star cluster was perfectly visible to Jamie - even when his eyes were closed, the images of the night sky, the frosted tundra were clearer than crystal. The Southern Fish, the Centaur, and the Dove constellations beamed at him from distances of millions of light years. They faded into the Scorpion, Hydra, and Orion. Jamie no longer felt the cold. The snow was as comfortable as any mattress, any comforter or set of blankets. There was a glowing orb on his chest that seemed to increase in brilliance every passing second. The stars gazed down at him from all around, an endless abyss of space. Jack's cock seemed to reach inside him deeper and deeper with each thrust; the incarnate's breath was also coming out in frenzied puffs of mist; his finger's dug into Jamie's hips, his abs contracted over and over; Jamie couldn't decide what to focus on the most - the pleasure and bliss, the beauty, the scenery. It was sensory overload to the max.

Jamie reached between them to pump himself closer to an orgasm but it was hardly necessary. When Jack gave a strangled shout as he climaxed into Jamie, the teen felt a thrill race through him and the orb burst into a flare of light that overwhelmed both of them and, for moment, the entire landscape was an icy blue white. Jamie felt Jack climax inside of him and for a few seconds, Jamie was floating through the stratosphere, seeing the entire wintry world below him, every snowcapped mountain, every iced lake, every frozen tundra--

It eventually faded, the orb disappearing back into the form of the autumesque pocket watch Old Man Drew had given Jamie and they were back in the bedroom. Jamie was on the verge, his muscles were so tight, they hurt and the heat whirled up inside him. But he was hungry for more, so he shoved Jack off of him and onto the bed, and straddled Jack’s chest, feeling his cool pectoral muscles beneath him. Scooting forward, Jamie placed the head of his cock between Jack’s lips. The Prince of Winter willingly sucked in and Jamie, with his hands on the headboard of his bed, began to thrust gently into Jack’s mouth, frost racing up Jamie's body as though he were immortal himself. 

It didn’t take long. It didn’t take long _at all_ before Jamie’s vision went blank, his muscles drew in tightly, and he came in Jack’s mouth. Unlike all of his times with Levi, Jamie knew he didn’t have to apologise, that Jack _wanted_ this as much as Jamie did. The incarnate didn’t even stop sucking after he swallowed visibly until Jamie was completely done and even after that, he just lay there, lazily beneath the teen, sucking idly, on the very tip. Waiting. Jamie watched, mesmerised by the scene, his heart moving much too quickly, his breath uneven, shallow, and every nerve in his body tingling with celestial motion. 

Finally, Jamie collapsed beside Jack. The two young men entwined themselves in each other so intricately, if it hadn’t been for Jamie’s autumnal glow, it wouldn’t be easy to see where one began and the other ended. Jack stroked Jamie’s hair as they gazed at each other. 

“Is that...how you see the world?” Jamie asked, his voice quietly hoarse. 

“That’s a fraction of it,” Jack answered, smiling. 

“It was so...so beautiful...” 

Jack kissed him, his cool breath expelling gently into Jamie's mouth.  Jamie’s eyelids fluttered shut as sleep overcame him. 

When he woke up, several hours later, the sun was just peaking above the horizon. What happened... Jamie would have thought had been a dream had he not ached in all the right places; there were tender spots between his legs, down his thighs, dotted across his throat and Jamie's lips still felt raw. Jack was gone, off to perform his worldly duties probably. But in his place, upon the pillow, rested a large, bronze maple leaf. 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

“You’re fucking kidding me!” Monty said. He, Pippa, and Jamie were Skyping a few days later. Jamie was sprawled out across his bed, his MacBook propped up on some books and Monty and Pippa were on video, too, doing their own things. Pippa was playing _The Last of Us_ and _Beyond Two Souls_. And Monty was scrutinising an assignment he’d been given over Spring break. “The _entire_ _Bioshock_ trilogy plus _Infamous Second Sons_ for only $30?! Who’s the fucker who’s selling you that and how can I get in on that deal?!”

“It was through a friend of a friend at school,” Jamie answered, rolling over onto his back and staring at the ceiling. He winced from the aching aftermath of having sex with winter. _Honestly_. 

“You get good deals on good shit while I get stuck with stupid essays about literature I read in the fifth grade,” Monty complained. “How come I have to do homework and you don’t? You’re the one who _likes_ doing it.”

“I don’t _like_ doing it!” Jamie said. “I like doing my research; there’s a difference!”

“Monty, you told your professor that he was so boring, that if reincarnation existed, he’d be reborn as a _building_ ,” Pippa said, interrupting the blond so that he sat there, gaping like a goldfish. “What were you expecting? A bouquet of flowers and a Nobel prize?”

“I’d take flowers.” Monty slammed the binder onto his bed. “Fuck this. I’m so not doing that.” There was a knock on Monty’s door and his mother came in. “Oh shit!” he added. “I forgot, Mom.” Mrs. Allen gave him a look, then offered a wave to Pippa and Jamie. 

“Where you going?” Jamie asked. 

“He needed to chop up the tree that fell in our backyard about a million months ago,” Mrs. Allen said. 

Monty sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “It was a _month_ ago. And I’ve been at school.”

“You also promised.”

“Okay, okay.” He turned to his computer. “I’ll talk to you guys later. You know, Jamie, if you’re ever up for chopping firewood...”

“Not a chance,” Jamie said, grinning. Monty glared playfully and then signed out. 

“Chopping wood. Sounds _so_ exciting,” Pippa remarked, pausing her game and swivelling around in her chair to look at her computer screen. 

“Enthralling.”

“Enticing.”

“Appealing.”

“Enchanting.”

“Alluring.”

“Electrifying.”

“We could do this for years.”

“Yes, yes we could.” Pippa leaned back in her chair, twirled for a few seconds, and came to a halt. “Though I’d win because I’m better at Spanish than you.”

“Fshh...” Jamie scoffed, sitting up, and heading towards his drawers. He took off the long-sleeved shirt he'd slept in and replaced it with a short sleeved shirt. But as soon as he came to sit in front of the camera, Pippa gasped. 

“Jamie, what the heck?!”

He stared at her, eyes wide. “What? What happened?”

She was pointing at him. “What’s--what’s all over your arms?!”

“Huh??” Jamie looked down and when he realised what she was pointing at, he sighed ruefully. “Oh...” and then, “ _Fuck_...” 

“Is Levi doing that to you?” Pippa demanded. Jamie stared at her. 

“No. _No!_ Levi would never hurt me!” He glared at her until she backed down and apologised. “No, I...” He ran a hand through his hair before coming back to sit on his bed. He’d been hoping to avoid this, but of course, he’d been careless. Pippa had been his best friend since they were toddlers. She always knew, she always guessed. She knew him better than he knew himself at times. And right now, Jamie’s entire torso, arms included, was dotted with bruises, many blue and black, others sporting a gross yellow tinge, some were just bristly pink smears. “It was...It was Jack.”

Pippa looked taken aback. “ _Jack_? Jack _Frost_? He’s just an idea, why would he-- _oh_ _.”_ Her eyes suddenly went very round as it dawned on her what had happened. But then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, Jamie, you didn’t. You _didn’t_. Did you?”

Jamie stood there, feeling awkward. “I, uh...Yeah.”

“You had sex with Jack Frost.” Her tone was disbelieving. Jamie couldn’t honestly blame her. 

“I had sex with Jack Frost.”

She stared at him. “And Levi--?”

“--doesn’t know.”

“You cheated?”

The ache in Jamie’s scalpula returned, and shoulders bowed, he stared between his knees.  “I dunno,” he said. “We never officially broke it off but we’ve definitely stopped seeing each other. I thought we’d just... drifted apart... Last time I checked, he was going down to Hawaii for a couple months to clean up ocean debris.”

Pippa just continued to gaze at Jamie. “You better make sure you’re officially over.”

Jamie swallowed and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, his throat dry. “You’re right.”

“I can’t believe you did that, Jamie. Do you even know what you’re playing at?”

“No, I don’t. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.” Jamie held the computer screen in his hands and looked at her earnestly. “But I want it, whatever it is. I want all of it and--and I don’t want it to end.”

“Jamie, he’s immortal! He doesn’t get old!”

“Yeah, that’s the definition of immortal, Pippa. What, you think I didn’t think about that?! You think I haven’t--I just--I can’t--” 

“Okay!” Pippa held up a hand. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You know him better than I do. _You’re_ his friend _._ But I’m _your_ friend and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Breathing hard from his rapid rise in anger, Jamie turned away. “I’ll be fine. I’ll figure something out.”

Pippa didn’t say anything. Jamie could literally hear the wheels turning in her head as she decided her next tactic. “I can’t believe you fucked Jack Frost.”

“Uh, actually, I...didn’t. It was the other way around.”

Though still worried and nervous, Pippa managed to look mildly impressed. A grin twitched at the corners of her lips. “Now, you’re gonna have to tell me what _that_ was like!”

Jamie stared sheepishly at the floor, a blush spreading up his neck. “ _Well..._ ”

Jamie’s presentation in May was drawing closer and closer. There were rumours circulating the science department that Jamie may be up for a Nobel Prize but he ignored them for they just made him even more nervous. He and Levi had talked and though Levi insisted he wasn’t mad, Jamie could tell he’d hurt him. They were going to attempt to keep up a friendship, at least for the time being and Levi taunted him by sending him pictures of Hawaiian scenery. 

Despite being back at university, Jamie’s relationship with Jack had not calmed down at all. He’d gotten used to wearing a blue tooth while in public so he could converse with Jack without seeming like he was entirely talking to himself. One time, during class, Jack had swooped behind Jamie and tried to stick his hand down the teen’s pants and, as Jamie’s fellow classmates were glancing around trying to figure out where the blast of cool air came from, Jamie stood up and excused himself from class. Then he spent ten minutes berating Jack about how important his education was. Afterwards, they went back to the dorm and fucked. 

May came faster than Jamie could have hoped for. His presentation wasn’t until the end of the month but still, he was on the edge even during the first week. Arlo, his dormmate, had learned to do most of his studying down in the library whenever Jamie was behaving a tad more antsy than usual. It was one of these nights that Jack came swooping into the dorm, causing all of Jamie’s loose papers to go flying about. 

“ _Scheiße_!” he swore, too lazy to even get off the bed to clean up the mess. He just sighed loudly in annoyance. 

“Language, language,” Jack said teasingly. 

It wasn’t long before they were both naked and Jack straddled Jamie’s cock and rode him until Jamie climaxed. Jamie finished up by swallowing Jack’s seed and they both lay there, panting, hot and cold at once, as the room gradually came back into view. The incarnate was laying on his stomach, head resting on his arm, and Jamie was between his legs, his softened cock nestled against Jack’s ass, and he leaned forward to give the Prince of Winter a massage. Not that he needed it, really, but it was an excuse to touch him and Jack wasn’t complaining. Jamie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the nape of Jack’s neck. His skin was so white, like perforated marble. Jamie’s fingers traced lines down his back. Above them, a crescent moon made of ice hovered, dripping water onto their naked forms. 

“This will be one of my last visits for the spring,” Jack said. “I’m expected to create a blizzard over a part of Northern Siberia tomorrow and Lapland is expected to have record lows...”

“I’m going up to Alaska this summer,” Jamie responded. “I’ll see you there, right?”

Jack made a noise. “Oh yeah, kiddo, definitely. There’s a lot of fun to be had in Alaska, you wait.” 

“Mmm,” Jamie said, almost purring, as he  kissed down Jack’s spine, down past his tail bone, and further still, until he massaged Jack’s puckered ring with his tongue. 

The incarnate moaned softly. “Jaamie...”

“Like that, huh.”

“I like everything you do, kiddo.”

“You better.” Jamie sucked on the skin there, relishing the taste of winter on his tongue and lips. Earlier, when he’d swallowed Jack, it had been really cold, and refreshing, like a jumping into a cool lake on a hot summer day. 

Jamie drew back, his hands rubbing the backs of Jack’s thighs, up over his buttocks, and up his back, feeling each muscular indentation beneath his palms. With a lazy hand, Jack conjured up dolphins made of ice and let them dance through the dorm. 

“Are...Is...this going to last?” Jamie finally said, a tad hesitantly. 

Beneath him, Jack pushed himself over and onto his back. He wrapped his legs around Jamie’s waist. “What do you mean?” 

The ice dolphins jumped into each other and formed a large, crystal crescent moon, that glowed dully in the darkness of the dorm. Jamie heard the faintest sound of crackling as a frost crawled up the walls and over the ceiling. 

Jamie caressed Jack’s cheek. “I’m just a mortal.”

Jack closed his eyes, breathing out a cloud of mist. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t hide from me.”

Reluctantly, the incarnate opened his eyes. “I should’ve known you’d bring it up again.”

“It’s more serious now. We’re...we’re...” Jamie gestured to the way they were positioned, their nakedness, their closeness. “We’re whatever the fuck this is. More than we were before. And--and I’m ageing. I’m getting older every year and you just--you just stay the same--”

“Jamie--”

Jamie kissed him hard, pushing his tongue into Jack’s mouth. He didn’t want to discuss this; it was such a bitter topic. But Pippa’s concerns rang clearly through his mind. She’d been right. There was no future for a mortal and an immortal. It was that classic pairing, written in every supernatural tragedy. And Jamie didn’t have a way out - he couldn’t be turned into a vampire or a wizard; he couldn’t slow down his life or stop it altogether like the Tucks. He didn’t have access to a fountain of youth. And Jack, Jack in all his eminence and history, would just continue to live, to _be_. Jamie would disappear. _Time passes differently for us, kiddo. Eight years is like a couple months to me at most._ Over a couple of centuries, Jack’s time with Jamie would just become long lost memories. 

It was so utterly selfish but Jamie didn’t think he could bear that. Not that he’d have to for long - a full life for a human being was nothing compared to the life of a seasonal incarnate. Jack, himself, may be only three centuries old but winter has been around for a _really long time_. Jack wasn’t the first incarnate of winter and he definitely wouldn’t be the last. 

What was scarier was this change that had been happening to Jamie the more time he spent with Jack. It increased drastically after he and Jack had sex the first time. It was like he no longer saw the world in three dimensions, but rather in four. Everything seemed so far away, slower, less important. It was like a perpetual feeling of vertigo. It was as though he were being drawn into Jack’s spiritual world without completely leaving the mortal one behind. Jack’s world was enticing - it was brighter and clearer; it was like having enhanced vision. There were times, always when Jack was near, that Jamie felt he could see the rolling tundras of Antarctica, see the scientists working at Amundsen or Cierva or Palmer, or he’d get random visions of aurora or icebergs. The visions were never solid; it would be like someone had planted the pictures in his mind and he just thought about them vaguely before moving onto the next topic. 

It was as though he were passing into another world permanently. 

But he still retained his mortal self. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Jamie said, drawing away. “I’m getting older and you’re just going to be...what you are... and...my parents will expect me to marry someone and maybe raise some kids of my own and...”

Jack crawled out from beneath Jamie and sat up. He cupped Jamie’s head in his hands. 

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “You can stay with me as long as you’re comfortable. And then when you want it to end, it will.”

“No!” Jamie said exasperatedly. He slid off the bed and began to pace. “It’s not going to end like that! Not on my behalf!” He heard Jack’s voice again, like an echo: _Then I’ll be standing at your grave_. 

“Then how is it supposed to end?” Jack stood up nimbly, looking really odd being naked next to his staff. “Do you have the answers? Because I sure as hell don’t!”

He began to don his clothes. Jamie followed suit.

“We can’t be together _at all_!” The words left Jamie’s mouth before he had time to think about them. He almost stopped, to try to take them back, to try to repair the damage, but it was too late, and out spilled more harsh truths: “We just _can’t_! No one can fucking see you! You don’t have a social security number or--or a... we... We can’t get _married_ or have joint bank accounts or--or do joint tax returns and mortgages and pay bills and--”

“Taxes get returned...?” Jack mused, raising an eyebrow. 

“Jack!”

“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “This isn’t my area.”

“Then what _is_ your area?”

Jack stared at Jamie. “You know that already.”

Jamie’s eyes flickered for a moment but then he gritted his teeth and walked right up to Jack so that their faces were merely inches apart. “I mean as far as mortals go. As far as relationships go.”

“Not my area.”

“ _Seriously_? Then what the flying fuck are you doing with _me_?!”

The expression on Jack’s face turned from unreadable to readable in seconds. A blatant sadness scrawled itself across his face; forlornity, regret, realisation. Before he spoke, Jamie knew that whatever Jack was going to say, it was going to be bad; he didn’t know _how_ he knew but Jack wouldn’t lie to him. Jack was practically incapable of lying to him. And both of them knew that, too. “It...it was fun.”

“Are you serious.” It wasn’t a question. “That’s all this is to you? _Fun_?”

“No,” Jack answered, looking lost. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it like--”

“Yeah, tell me,” Jamie snapped, pushing the incarnate backwards. He did it once, twice. “How did the Almighty Jack Frost mean it, huh?!”

“Stop. _Stop_!” Jack turned away, hands over his head. “Aggghhhh!!” In one fluid motion, Jack grabbed the handle of his staff, whirled around, and pointed it at Jamie. “I’ll figure something out!” he yelled, his voice so loud and so full of--of _power_ \--the walls reverberated from it. But Jamie was unimpressed - to him, it was a little thing, something to be expected. To his university floormates, however, it was something else - a loud boom, an echoing thunder that rippled through the middle floors of the building. Jack swung his staff in irritation causing frost to splash across the dorm walls like fresh paint just as the front door swung open. 

_WHOOOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!_

A frigid gust of air and snow flurries rushed through the room from out of Jack’s staff and into the corridor, cloaking four shapes standing in the revealed doorway. But they were paid no heed as Jamie had ducked out of harm’s way. 

“LEAVE!” he yelled above the wintry din. 

Jack gave him a look. “I’ll do it,” he said, speaking in a normal tone, but the volume of his voice was maximised. “I _promise_.”

“Go! Get out of here!”

“Jamie, I’ll find a way.” And Jack was gone. 

When the snow had settled on the floor, Jamie saw Arlo and a few friends standing there, shocked, as pieces of snow melted down their faces. 

Still angry, Jamie said, “Sorry,” before whipping past them and heading out. 

“Do you have the pretzels?” Monty asked from the front seat. 

“Nope.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t.”

“Jamie, you’re smirking.” 

Jamie laughed and backed away as Monty made a grab for him over the seat. “Shut up, you prole. Give me the goddamn pretzels! I’m hungry!”

Monty dived between the seats to grab Jamie’s ankle and thus allowed Jamie to give Monty a decent kick in the face. “OW, FUCK.”

“Guys!” Levi said, from the driver’s seat. “You know, it may not mean much to you, but this is a really dangerous pass and you obviously didn’t hear the reports on how there may be black ice leftover from--” 

“GIVE THEM TO ME, JAMIE FUCKIN’ BENNETT!” Monty bellowed over Levi, who rolled his eyes and sighed. 

“Nuh uh uh, you didn’t say the magic word!” Jamie said in an annoying singsong sort of voice, mimicking a certain despicable IT guy from some old dino movie. Monty was on top of Jamie now, despite a large portion of his legs still in the front seat. 

“You can shove the magic word up your fat ass. Give me those fucking pretzels!”

“Monty wants pretzels?!” Jamie screeched in the gravelly voice of the skeksis. “Monty didn’t say _PLEASE_??”

Monty grabbed hold onto Jamie but Jamie was quick; he flipped the taller boy over, causing Monty’s foot to bounce hard off the seat and hit the roof. Levi swore. 

“Can’t you both fucking cool it? At least until we’re through this pass! It’s really ic--”

Something large and rectangular crashed through the meridian and came careening into view, blocked out the sun and--

WHAM!

Levi’s Jetta spun out of control as the 18-wheeler’s front end collided with the passenger side of the sedan; the three boys shouted in fear as the car skidded off the road. It smashed right through a guardrail, down a steep ravine and off a cliff. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was one literary reference, three film references, and a BlackIce reference. Anyone catch them all? :-P


	10. Chapter 10

 

The clouds hung low as a chilly breeze wafted through the trees; it was a crisp day, even for spring. Jack, perched upon a low tree branch, glanced up at the sky, sensing that it was going to rain. The Bennetts, the Allens, and Levi’s brother, Mathias van der Aa,  all stood in a circle around the casket. It was the third funeral that week and tears were scarce. Instead of sheer sobbing, there was an ugly, sorrowful silence. Levi’s family didn’t even show up for this procession. They couldn’t. But Levi’s brother stood in for them, his face pale, unreadable. Mrs. Bennett had tears rolling down her cheeks, but there was Sophie - silent, stony, emotionless. She may have been dead standing there for the life had gone from her eyes. 

“...to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him...” The celebrant murmured and earth was cast upon the wooden box, the wooden box where Jamie Bennett rested, no longer full of life. 

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name...” the celebrant continued and a few solemn voices joined in. Pippa was standing next to Caleb. Jack watched her, the way she looked like she was fighting herself, fighting to keep from doing something drastic. And when the funeral ended, and nearly everyone began to disperse, as the first few drops of rain fell, she walked right up to the grave. 

“Jamie,” she said hoarsely, her voice choked with tears. “I...I don’t know if you can hear me because ever...ever since...I don’t know what to believe anymore b-but I...” She let her voice fade. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper, which she opened up and held with both hands. 

“I will not stand at your grave and weep,” she began.  
“You...are not there. You do not sleep.  
You are a thousand winds that blow.  
You are the diamond glints in the snow.” 

She looked up into the sky searchingly before continuing on. 

“You are the...sunlight on ripened grain.  
You are the gentle autumn rain.  
When I wake in the morning's hush  
You--you are the sift uplifting rush  
Of quiet birds in circled...flight.  
You are the soft stars that shine at night.  
I will not stand here, at your grave and cry;  
For you’re not there. You did not die.”

But Pippa did stand there. And tears _did_ stream down her cheeks. And her lips trembled. She crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the grave and forcibly turned her back on the casket. With an anguished sob, she dashed away from the burial ground, deeper into the cemetery. The rain began to fall harder. 

“Jack!” Pippa called, slowing down. “Jack, I know you’re there!”

The Prince of Winter hesitated for a moment, unsure, but then he caught a draft of wind and jumped over, landing in front of her, near a tall tombstone. As soon as she saw him, she jumped into his arms. 

“Jack...” she sobbed into his sweatshirt, her tears melting the frost away. The incarnate wrapped his arms around her but said nothing. “He can’t be gone... _they_ can’t be gone...”

Sniffling, Pippa drew away and reached into her other pocket. She pulled something out of it and placed it in Jack’s hand, closing his fingers around it. “Jamie...” she began, wiping away a tear, “Jamie would’ve wanted you to have that. It was...it was, um.. his favourite thing...” 

Jack opened his fingers. It was the pocket watch Old Man Drew had given Jamie. He looked at Pippa and opened his mouth to say something but she just pecked him on the cheek and said, “Look, I should... I should probably get out of here. Take care of yourself, Jack.” She backed away, trying hard to stop crying, gave a small wave, and then walked into the summer rain. 

Jack looped the watch around his neck and was about to tuck it into his sweatshirt, but he decided to open it and stare at it. He ran his thumb over the ivy leaf engravings and the crystal face. With a sigh, he clicked it shut and put it away. 

“No use,” he said, sounding old, far away. As though he weren’t really there. “No use for anything anymore.” 

As night fell, his grief caught up with him. Jack had no idea how to handle it; he’d never handled something like this before. His memories of his former life, before becoming the spirit of winter, were too far gone, too far removed to dwell on those but here he was, in the present, and his chest felt strangely tight, and there was a maelstrom of emotions threatening to suffocate him. 

The storm moved onward, leaving behind a thick fog. The moon appeared from behind a thick, coal cotton ball of clouds and Jack danced up into the sky to face it. 

“Why’d you do this to me?” he asked. “Why did he have to go and I’m _stuck_ here, unable to do anything, but just--live and--”

He shot up through the clouds, leaving thick, glittering trails of ice behind him. He didn’t care what happened - Jack would bring blizzards that would rival the Ice Ages if he had to; it wouldn’t just be the storm of the century, it would be the storm of the fucking _epoch_. 

And all be damned, Jack couldn’t stop the tears. He had told himself he wouldn’t weep. He would _not_ but as he rose to face the moon, they streamed down his cheeks and froze there like little icy creeks. The rage built up inside of him, how unfair life was, how intrinsically, irrevocably _unfair_. 

“BRING HIM BACK! PLEASE BRING HIM BACK!! YOU HAVE TO. DON’T LET ME LIVE LIKE THIS!!” Clouds rolled back in, nimbostratus and altocumulus, and the skies darkened even more; the temperature in the air dropped more than twenty degrees. Frost raced across the country side, climbing up tree trunks and tree limbs, freezing over lakes, crackling as it spiralled over cars and houses and windows. A howling wind dashed through the canopies like a pack of wild wolves. And even so, the temperature continued to drop. 

“Please, please, _please_ ,” Jack moaned. “Please bring him back. I _know_ you can do it. You brought _me_ back. Please don’t make me do this, please don’t let me live like this. I didn’t know, I didn’t _know_!” It was the same old ignorance. He had saved his sister. He had to save Jamie, too. But Jamie was gone. He had left. He had left Jack in spite of all of his earnest promises. He had left too soon. _It was too soon, way, way too soon_. 

“I’ll pay whatever price. I’ll do it. I promise I’ll do whatever it takes. Please...” 

No response. The moon just stared back at him in all of its brightness. 

“Please,” Jack begged, crying harder now. “ _Please_. I’ll do it. I’ll... if I have to become mortal, if I have to die, if I have to take on a different role, please, just please, fix it. _Bring him back_.”

The moon began to shine brighter and brighter, until its light became blinding. Soon, the entire cemetery was covered in light and there was nothing else but the softest patter of snowflakes and hail falling to the ground. 

 

Contrary to popular belief, spirits rarely interacted with each other unless there was a situation that called for it. So when the Easter Bunny appeared in Svalbard as Jack was making his rounds, the Prince of Winter was surprised, startled, and even a bit shocked. 

“I didn’t touch your eggs--” Jack began but Bunny just raised a paw. 

“I’m not here about grudges, mate. We’re long past that, I’d reckon.”

Jack stood atop his staff, eyes narrowed. “Well, it’s nice to see you but I don’t understand--”

“Ha, yeh got that one right,” Bunny laughed sardonically. “Yeh don’t understand. You can’t go on makin’ deals with Máni like that.”

Jack leapt down from his staff. “Wait, _wait_ , you heard about that? How’d you know? Does everyone know?”

Bunny didn’t even grace that question with much more of a response than an eyeroll. Jack sighed. 

“Okay... _okay_... I just...I didn’t know what to do.”

“Y’realise it may not turn out the way you want it to, yeah?”

Jack’s heart dropped right through his stomach. It wasn’t hard to get what Bunny was implying. “That’s...that can’t be right. You and North and Tooth -- you all remember your past lives! I was just...I was just different because I--”

“--died first.” Bunny’s expression was remorseful and though he tried not to, he did feel a bit of pity for Jack. Friends tell each other the truth. They don’t sugarcoat. They’re there to keep you grounded, to keep your head level, to make sure you don’t lose your edge. But even so, Bunny couldn’t voice the entire truth: the truck had slipped on ice. And though Bunny didn’t, for a single fucking second, believe that Jack was responsible - because death is not up to them - he knew Jack would blame himself. 

So he said nothing.

The two of them stood there, rabbit and boy spirits, gazing out across the glittering tundra. 

 _Well_ , Bunnymund thought to himself, _a wise man once said that it ain’t over till it’s over. And I’ll be there when it is._  

__

Eyes flickered open. The sweetest scent of earth and pine filled his nostrils. Even deep down in the dirt, he could almost feel the rays of the moon upon him. Oh, how much he yearned to be up above, to feel the moonlight on his face, to speak the languages of the stars and trees. He was so alive but he knew he could be even more so, if only he could get out of this portmanteau. He raised his hands and pressed them against the wooden barrier and pushed. It didn’t take long for it to give; the wood seemed to crumble away, as though it were responding naturally to his touch. 

In fact, the Earth itself moved aside, even as it fell upon him, causing him to swallow dust and get dirt in his mouth. But the majority of it filed to either side, creating a gentle, shallow tunnel, that opened up into the night air. 

He breathed in deeply; he could smell the scents of fertilizers and plant roots and earthworms. He could smell the trees and flowers and wild grasses, the leftover remnants of car exhaust and engine oil and rust. An owl hooted. There was the forlorn yodel of a loon. A second loon responded to the first. The horn of a train sounded in the distance. He dug his fingers into the dirt and pulled himself up and out of the ground. Jumping gracefully to his feet, he spread his arms, closed his eyes, leaned his head back...

...and breathed.

The night was alive. And he was alive and strong with it. 

So _very_ strong. He could feel the life of the planet surging through his veins, a glowing celestial energy that pulsed just under his skin. Even as he took in the millions of earthly scents, and felt the stars shining upon his bare flesh, and saw every detail of the night, he was incomplete. 

He was nameless. 

So he brooded; not about anything truly specific, just the falling of leaves, the crystal rain, the ivy crawling up the sides of houses and as he brooded, he wandered. His very body vibrated with potential energy - it was building and building and waiting to be released. Every so often, his hands would automatically go to his own neck, as though he were reaching for something that wasn’t there. He was searching for something but couldn’t even put a name to what he was searching for. 

One night, he was wandering through the cemetery, singing a tuneless melody in his mind, when he saw a softly glowing white light coming towards him. He stood there without apprehension for he knew no fear as the light diminished into the form of a young man with silver-white hair, pale skin, and dark, deep ocean blue eyes. 

When they were within a few feet of each other, the white-haired boy stared and there was something written on his face, something the other knew had a name but he knew no names. 

 _Have you come to name me?_ he asked silently, not knowing the words. The white-haired boy’s eyes glistened and he nodded. He stepped right up to the silent one until their bodies touched. They kissed lightly at first. But then the white-haired boy’s grip on the silent one tightened as though he were afraid to let go. As they kissed, the silent one felt something cool touch his neck, and a feathery whisper graced his ear, 

“You are... Jamie Autumnwind.”

The white-haired one pulled back and as the silent one reached down to touch what was now around his neck, his fingers wrapping around something round and cold, his eyes rolled back into his head, and a light burst from his chest

He rose up, up, and up into the sky!

Out of his very skin, fabric formed around his body - amber capris wrapped in Algerian ivy, a deer hide tunic flowed over his torso, sprouting from his shoulders and collarbones. He felt his hair shift and change, felt something growing out of his skull--

The pocket watch around his neck had a name now, Jamie realised. The watch and chain floated in mid-air in front of him and then, with a burst of crystalline sound, it exploded in size, lengthening, becoming more solid, longer and longer still until--

It was a staff - made of thousands of different types of wood - from sequoias to birch to maple to reeds and bamboo - every type swirling into each other, all connected through the glowing golden engravings - symbols written out in a splendid cursive in the language of the universe. When the staff was fully-formed, histories filled his head - he knew names now. He knew faces. He was a boy, a young man. His name was Jamie Autumnwind. He could fly, he longed for the fall, for Halloween, for treats and tricks and darkest corners and the passage into death. He relished in sharing knowledge, in being the link between innocence and experience, between one’s earthly self and one’s celestial self. 

He knew that the white-haired boy was not a boy at all - but a young man trapped in an immortal body and he was called the Prince of Winter, the Lord of Frost. He put things to sleep so they could rise again the following year. And he, Jamie, was the passage way between life and death. 

When his feet touched the ground, he saw the Guardian of Fun waiting for him. Jamie wondered if it were customary to be greeted by fellow spirits after an awakening. 

He _had_ been awakened, right? He came out of the Earth. He was _born_ from the Earth. And as far as he could tell, he _was_ Earth. 

Jamie looked back up at the moon as it smiled down upon him. He could see tiny insects floating in the moonlight; he could hear the rustling of field mice in the grass, he could hear the tiniest whisper of a breeze creeping through the tree leaves. When he and Jack left the cemetery and entered a cozy, sleeping neighbourhood, Jamie could sense everything - from a person yawning as they woke up and munched on a midnight snack, to snores and sleepy-time music, to televisions playing softly in the dens of those who couldn’t embrace sleep. He could hear a baby cry in one house; could hear a dog sighing from a backyard, could hear the low rumble of a car engine. 

The entire world was his to command. 

He stopped to gaze at his reflection in a window - his clothes shifted colours as he moved, amber, orange, raw umber, burnt sienna, crimson, khaki, hunter green... And his hair had a stunning blend of tortoise shell colours - golds, browns, yellows. His eyes were no longer that boring chestnut brown, but instead glittered with topaz and emerald flecks. He could see brilliantly out of those eyes - a sort of tetrachromacy - every hue, every colour of the rainbow was made available to him to zero in on and grab. He had a crown of thorns and twigs circling his head and each piece seemed to glow from within with moonfire and earthsong. 

Jack came up to stand beside him. He put a wary hand on Jamie’s. “You are my brother in spirit now,” he said. “You are the Lord of Fall and wherever you go, I shall follow.” When Jamie looked back at him, it was almost mamihlapinatapai but then Jamie’s face closed again and he nodded. 

“I owe you my voice,” he said, sounding older than the oldest tree, reminiscent of parchment. “I owe you my name. If you had not named me...”

Jack patted his back and with a big, somewhat forced, grin, he said, “You would’ve figured it out. Come on. We have lots to do.”

 

 

 

 

_Ten years later..._

Unlike Jack, Jamie didn’t have to grab a draft of wind to be carried great distances; he _created_ the wind. And when he created a stream of wind that landed him back in Burgess, Pennsylvania, he traversed through the neighbourhoods and the downtown, turning leaves brown and gold and yellow as he went, encouraging autumnal plants to thrive and flourish beneath his feet, forcing Burgess’s citizens to dress warmer, with Timberland boots and plaid scarves wrapped around their necks. 

He entered the cemetery. It’d been a decade since he’d visited. The groundskeeper had passed away and they hadn’t found a replacement. The grass was overgrown in many of the areas and several of the stones sagged and suffered under calcite and wear.

Jamie walked, lighter than a leaf, across the cemetery, through the wildgrasses, when he came across the place of his rising. The tomb had a name marked on it - Jamie Bennett - but the name was only coincidental. Or maybe Jack had named him after a local hero; he’d never bothered to investigate. There was too much life to explore, too much art to create. 

However, this year, there was someone kneeling at the grave. A stooped figure with long grey hair tied into a pony tail. Curious, Jamie approached, not making a sound. The figure was a woman, perhaps close to middle-age, and she was sobbing quietly. Jamie felt sorrow rise up inside him. He wanted to comfort the woman, but he didn’t know how. He danced up to the gravestone and perched upon it, looking down upon her. 

As though she felt his presence, she looked up, her pretty brown eyes tinged with red peered up at him from behind thick-rimmed spectacles. Those eyes went wide. Her jaw dropped. Jamie’s heart began to hammer painfully against his ribs. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. 

“ _Jamie_?”

 

 

 


End file.
